


Little Witch Academia - Falling Stars

by R5h



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-08-09 06:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 96,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16444943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R5h/pseuds/R5h
Summary: Saving the world is a little more complicated than you’d think.When Akko Kagari unlocked the Grand Triskelion and returned magic to the world, she expected everyone to be smiling about it. But when an all-new class of witches arrives at Luna Nova, it’s not long before she realizes that not everyone feels the same way about magic’s resurrection as she does.Tiffany Vandergard just wants to become a great witch like her mother, and do some good in the world. It would be a lot easier if her old best friend hadn’t decided to hate her out of nowhere, and if her new friends weren’t such handfuls, and if her self-appointed mentor wasn’t such a nutcase. And then there’s the problem of this legendary broom that’s decided to latch onto her.A story dedicated to anyone who’s ever tried to help.





	1. Prologue

“Mother?”

“Yes, Tiffany?” 

“Why do I have to go to _public_ school?”

“Tiffany,” her father growled, one hand gripping the steering wheel and the other primed over the horn. “You have asked this question ten times in the past three days. The answer is not going to change.” He sounded stressed. Tiffany got it: there were a lot of cars in front of them, and they weren’t moving an inch. New Amsterdam might have been the greatest city in the world, but the traffic stank.

Her mother sighed, then turned around in the front seat to look at Tiffany in the back. “Tiffany,” she said, and that was enough prompting for Tiffany to look out the window in a huff. “Look at me, Falling Star,” her mother said, in that warm way that was impossible to ignore.

Tiffany groaned and looked forward. “School’s not just about learning facts,” her mother said with a smile. “It’s about meeting people. Not tutors,” she added, as Tiffany tried to speak up. “People your own age. You’ve got to show them what you’re made of, after all.”

“Don’t wanna,” Tiffany grumbled, crossing her arms.

“You’re going to be at Luna Nova one day. You have to learn to get along with girls your own age—dear.”

The last part was addressed at Tiffany’s father. He was fidgeting his hand on the steering wheel, and Tiffany couldn’t see his mouth, but she knew he was doing the angry grimace thing. “The light is green,” he muttered in strangled tones, looking straight at the cars ahead. “How are you not seeing this? Are you colorblind?”

“Honey,” her mother said, “just let me take care of it.”

“But then the traffic wins,” her father said, slamming the horn twice. Tiffany winced at the burst of noise. “I can’t let the traffic win, Vicky!”

“Dear.” Now Mother was using the warm voice on Father. Tiffany knew how this was going to end. “You’re a valiant road warrior, but would you rather defeat the traffic, or get our daughter to her first ever day of school on time?”

Her father took a deep breath; then his shoulders slackened, and he stopped fidgeting. “All right,” he said.

“Thanks, honey.” Tiffany’s mother leaned in to give him a quick peck on the cheek, then rummaged in her purse. “For goodness’s sake, it always falls to the bottom—here we go,” she said, lifting her red wand from the purse. It shimmered with light as she tapped it twice against the dashboard and declared, “ _Intactilis._ ”

Tiffany shivered as magic flooded gradually throughout the expensive car, as if it were being dipped in invisible paint. The sensation felt weird on her skin—or rather, the lack of sensation.

“All right,” her mother said, twisting in her seat again to look at Tiffany. “Falling Star, you might want to close your eyes.”

Tiffany did. Almost. She left one eye just barely squinted open: she didn’t wanna miss it. Her father pressed on the accelerator.

The cars in front of them didn’t move, but it didn’t matter: Father's car slid smoothly through the Manhattan gridlock like a ghost. Tiffany winced as she found herself phasing through women, children, and dogs. Several gasps and honks hit her ears, along with more than one exclamation of, “Freaking witches!”

They made it to the elementary school at a rate unheard of for a New Amsterdam morning. Her father parked the car outside the school—overlapping with another parked car—and her mother got out, opened Tiffany’s car door, and unbuckled her from her car seat. Once they were both on the sidewalk, Tiffany’s mother tapped them both and whispered, “ _Tactilis,_ ” and Tiffany felt the air on her face once again.

“Well, I think that’s everything,” Tiffany’s mother said, stowing her wand again. “Work hard, be brilliant, meet new people, and let me know if any of the teachers give you a hard time, okay, Falling Star? Mother will handle it.”

Tiffany winced. “Mother,” she said, “please don’t call me that.”

“But you’re my little falling star!” Her mother leaned in and, with a little cutesy noise, pulled Tiffany into a hug.

“It’s weird!” Tiffany said, her voice muffled in her mother’s dress. “And there’s people around!” With some effort she struggled free of the hug. “Why do you even call me that, anyway?” she whispered, so the pedestrians on the sidewalk couldn’t hear.

“Because you’re a Vandergard, Tiffany.” Her mother crouched down, placed her hands on Tiffany’s shoulders, and looked her in the eyes. “And when a Vandergard touches down, she always makes a big impact.”

“Vicky!” her father called from the car. “We’ll be late to the conference!”

Her mother leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, and Tiffany allowed it. “Love you,” she said, and then tapped herself with her wand again. “Have a good day at school, Falling Star! We’ll pick you up right here, okay? Bye!”

Her mother waved as she stepped into the car, then closed the door. Tiffany’s father backed out of the space, and as he pulled out onto the road, Tiffany could see their car’s V hood ornament. Then it was gone, clipping through cars in defiance of the laws of physics and traffic alike.

Tiffany’s ears were on fire. She’d said it again. She’d said ‘Falling Star’ again, as if it wasn’t the weirdest nickname ever. And there were people around.

Still, it could be worse.

“Mom!” said another girl’s voice from further down the sidewalk. “Don’t call me that!”

“But you’re my little lambykins!” said the girl’s mother, a somewhat out-of-breath looking woman who scooped her up in a hug. “And you’re just the cutest little girl in the world, yes you are!”

“Mooooooooom!”

Tiffany hid her giggles behind her hand.

“All right,” the mother said, fishing a paper card from her purse and handing it to the girl. “You know how to use a MetroCard now, right? You have to get yourself home today. Dinner’s in the fridge, so just microwave it, okay? I’ll be home later.”

“Yeah, Mom,” came the resigned reply.

“Have fun at school! Good luck! Love you, Alice!” The woman leaned in for a kiss on the cheek, and then was backing away. “I’ve got to go or I’ll be late for work—bye, lambykins!” She twisted around as she moved, and was soon running down the sidewalk.

Alice stood there, alone on the pavement even as parents and kids walked by. She looked up at the building—Tiffany would say it looked like a castle, but she knew what real castles looked like and this wasn’t it—and gulped.

Well, Mother had said to make new friends.

Tiffany sidled closer, and eventually the girl—Alice—noticed. “What?” she said. “What’s so funny.”

Oh. Tiffany was still smiling. “Sorry,” she said. “I just… lambykins?”

“Shut up!” Alice huffed, shrugged her bookbag, and marched toward the steps.

“No, wait, I just mean—” Tiffany ran after her to catch up. “My mother does that too.”

“Does what?”

“Calls me something dumb. She calls me….” Tiffany looked around for potential eavesdroppers, then whispered, “‘Falling Star’.”

Alice stared resolutely ahead, and to her credit managed to keep it up for five seconds. But at length, a laugh burst out. “Falling Star?” she said, a little too loudly for Tiffany’s taste. “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know!” Somehow it was easier to laugh about it with this girl than it was with her mother. Tiffany stuck her hand out once she was done giggling. “But you can call me Tiffany!”

“Alice.” Alice grabbed her hand and shook hard, even though she wasn’t very good at it. 

 

* * *

 

It was recess, and Tiffany was gawping at the object in Alice’s hand. “You’re a witch too?” she whispered in their corner of the playground. “Mother says we’re really rare!”

“We are?” Alice twiddled her fingers, still holding her wand. “Mom’s a witch too, but she’s never said how many other witches there are in New York.”

“New Amsterdam.”

“What?”

“Uh… nevermind.”

“Anyway, I just know I haven’t met one. She….” She sighed. “She actually hasn’t told me a lot about being a witch—I check out a lot of books from the library. I’ve learned a bunch, though!” she added, perking up.

“Really? Show me!” Tiffany leaned in.

“Okay.”

Alice leaned toward the ground. Between the two of them, on the mess of woodchips that made up the playground’s surface, a little weed had sprung up. It wasn’t any taller than Tiffany’s foot, and only had two leaves to speak of. Alice took a deep breath, held the tip of her wand over the plant, and whispered, “ _Foraen mugrowna._ ”

The weed shimmered, and by and by it grew toward Alice’s wand. But only slowly. After a few seconds, it faded, having only grown about four inches. Alice sighed. “I know it’s not a lot—”

“That’s amazing!” Tiffany said, once her mouth had stopped being wide open. “I can’t do anything like that yet, and I’ve been practicing forever! All I know how to do is make stuff float so far!”

“R-really?”

“Yeah!” Tiffany shrugged. “Not like it matters. I’m not that interested in magic—but wow! You’re gonna be a great witch some day!”

Alice blushed. “Thanks…. I wish I could do more, but my mom’s apartment isn’t that close to the Sorcerer's Stone at Vandergard House. This school’s a lot closer, but….”

Tiffany gasped, and leaped to her feet. “You should come to my house after school! I’m sure Mother would be happy to have you, and we could practice magic together!”

Alice looked up. “Do you live close to the Vandergards or something?”

Tiffany could only giggle until Alice’s eyes widened. “No way,” she said.

 

* * *

 

“Your house is so big!” Alice yelled, as she got out of the Vandergards’ car.

“Yes, yes,” Tiffany admitted. It was pretty big—bigger than the school, and a lot prettier. A giant V emblem was emblazoned on the front like on the car’s hood ornament. Best of all was the green-blue light shining from the highest tower, where her parents said their family’s Sorcerer’s Stone was located.

Speaking of which. “Try it, try it!” she said.

Alice stared at her for a moment before her eyes widened in comprehension. She bounded toward a flower bed, wand in hand, and yelled, “ _Foraen mugrowna!_ ”

The marigold she was pointing at shimmered, then vibrated, then burst five feet out of the ground. It towered over Alice and Tiffany, and they gaped at it.

“That was amazing!” Tiffany eventually said. “I knew it would look better here—”

“Hey!”

Tiffany and Alice looked around to see Tiffany’s father stomping toward them, with a dark look on his face. “Who said you could mess with the flowerbeds?” he demanded.

Tiffany and Alice gulped.

A second later, her father’s expression cleared up like a storm vanishing, and he laughed. “I'm kidding. Gotcha! Have fun, you crazy kids!”

“Dear,” her mother admonished, following him up the stairs and into the house.

“Come on,” Tiffany said, taking Alice’s hand and dragging her around the house to the backyard. It took a while.

“But—this is amazing!” Alice said. “How are you not just doing magic all the time?”

“Eh.” Tiffany shrugged. “I mean, magic’s cool, but….”

They reached the backyard, but Tiffany kept going, pulling Alice until they reached the shed. She flung the door open with her free hand, then gestured at the treasure trove within. “I’ve never thought it was as cool as flying.”

Alice froze. “Is that....” She gulped, and spoke again. “Are those brooms? Like, witches’ brooms?”

“Uh… yeah?” Tiffany leaped inside and grabbed her second favorite one from the dozen inside, all arranged in a neat row. “This one’s B grade, thirty inches. You can have it if you want.”

Alice wasn’t responding, but Tiffany wasn’t looking. “I know, only B grade,” she continued, “but I’m afraid this one’s mine.” She grabbed the best one of the bunch, three spots down. “A grade, thirty three inches. One of the best brooms in the country, and made just for me.”

She turned around, and saw that Alice wasn’t following her. Slowly, Alice reached out, a bit like a person at an art museum who knew they weren’t supposed to touch the masterpieces. Which was weird, because of course she was supposed to touch these. They were brooms. “Come on,” Tiffany said, “pick one so we can race!”

“I… I’ve…” Alice frowned and looked off to the side.

“What’s the matter?” Tiffany bounded back out, broom in hand. “You’ve ridden before, right?”

“What? Uh, yeah! A ton!” Alice said, trying in vain to hide her shameful blush with a hand. Finally she sighed. “I… don’t have any brooms at home.”

Tiffany gasped.

“I’ve… never even ridden one before.” Alice looked absolutely miserable. “I think I’ve seen one, like, at the museum?” she offered.

Tiffany kept staring, and Alice backed away. “Is that, like, okay? Are we still friends, or—”

Tiffany ran back into the shed, grabbed a broom, ran out, and shoved it into Alice’s hands. “I’m going to teach you to fly right now!” 

 

* * *

 

It was a few years later, and it was summer, and they were drenched in sweat.

Not just because it was summer, though.

“You two,” Alice’s mother said, crouching to look at the girls’ eye level, “need to know when to slow down.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Alice panted, her face red with exertion. She sounded about as sorry as Tiffany felt—not at all. Tiffany glanced over her shoulder again to see the good work they’d done; two patches of flowers, grown to unnatural heights by Foraen Mugrowna. Tiffany's flowers were ten feet tall, but Alice's would have surpassed twenty feet if they hadn't started drooping in the middle. Either way, Alice had won.

If only Alice's mother cared. Instead she tutted and pulled out her wand. “You need to stay hydrated in the summer heat,” she said, whisking it around in the air. A pitcher of lemonade appeared in the air, and beneath it two glasses—well, that wasn’t quite right: one ornate glass bottle, and one plastic cup. As usual.

Tiffany and Alice both sighed as the pitcher poured, its stream of lemonade bifurcating to fill both cups at the same rate. “Drink up, you two!” she said, and the two full containers floated forward. As usual, Tiffany got the glass and Alice got the cup.

“Thanks, Mom,” Alice said, still as red as before, but not from exertion. She looked as ashamed as if her mother had called her ‘lambykins’ a hundred times, and Tiffany for her part felt no small amount of _fremdscham_ —a word she’d had to look up to describe how she felt when this happened, because it kept happening.

“Why does your mother do that?” she hissed, as both of them beat a retreat from Alice’s mother.

“I don’t know….” Alice took another deep breath, then a long draught from her cup. Once she’d swallowed, she poured what was left over her short black hair and continued, “I think it’s because she makes less money than your parents do.”

“No she doesn’t! My parents don’t make money, they just _have_ money.” Tiffany pouted. She tried doing the same thing Alice was doing, but it only got her white-blonde hair wet. She didn’t see what was so good about that. “And also drag me to conferences. Your mother goes and does things, and leaves you alone.”

Alice sighed. “It’s not as fun as it sounds. But hey—” she smiled “—at least I get to come over here when she’s working late. What do you want to do next?”

“How about….” Tiffany flicked up her wand, and the door to the shed burst open; Tiffany’s and Alice’s brooms flew out into Tiffany’s hand. “A broom race! First one around the grounds wins!” She held out Alice’s broom.

Alice ughed, and Tiffany wished she had a better word for it than that. “We always do that, and you always win!”

“You’re always better at magic! Fair’s fair!”

“Then why do you keep challenging me at magic?”

“I dunno, so we can be the best witches ever?”

Alice blushed and looked away.

Tiffany sighed, then perked her ears: Alice’s mother seemed to be saying something. “And let me restate,” she said to Tiffany’s parents, joining them on the veranda, “what a pleasure it is to be invited over. You know Alice has such fun here.”

“Happy to have her,” Tiffany’s father said, smiling widely and knocking back a bottle of beer. “I’m just glad our girl’s been able to find a friend.”

“Oh, and I feel the same way!” Alice’s mother said quickly.

“Yes, we’re all very happy.” Tiffany’s mother smiled. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but if we could just finalize the details of our agreement….”

“Of course,” Alice’s mother said, and what she said next was too quiet for Tiffany to hear from a distance.

Tiffany looked over to see Alice was watching too; then, the two of them shared a look. Then they ducked behind a hedge, moving in concert, and sat down. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking?” Alice said.

“Of course,” Tiffany said.

Alice pulled out her wand. “I love hanging out at your parents’ place.”

Tiffany grinned. This was a grown-up conversation, and even better, it was a grown-up conversation that they didn’t want the kids overhearing. Which automatically made it more interesting than even a broom race.

Alice jiggled her wand in a complicated pattern, one Tiffany could neither describe nor replicate, then held it straight up and whispered, “ _Subausculto_.” A crackle of radio static came through first, but after a few seconds Tiffany was able to hear the voices of her parents and Alice’s mother.

“—magically signed and sealed,” Alice’s mother said. “It’s done.”

“Good. You won’t regret this,” Tiffany’s mother replied. “Your daughter is going to get a chance to be fully immersed in the world of magic. It’s an incredible privilege!”

“Yes, right.” Alice’s mother sighed. “I just… it seems like it shouldn’t be so hard. She reads to me, you know? She knows more about witchcraft than I do, I swear—she’s going to be extraordinary—and recently she’s found this book about the old days of Yggdrasil, and the Nine Olde Witches. When magic was everywhere, and a witch didn’t need to go to any special lengths to find it.”

“Ah, the Olde Days,” Tiffany’s mother said, and then made a sound suggesting a shiver of revulsion. “Those must have been dreadful times to live in.”

A pause. “Pardon?”

“Well, think about it. It must have been the Wild West! Any hoodlum could shove a wand in your face and say, ‘hands up, or I’ll blow your head off’!” Another shuddering noise from Tiffany’s mother. “I’d hate to live in those days. How much nicer things are now, when we can make sure the right people have access, and magic can be regulated like it _should_ be.”

Tiffany frowned, and mulled this over in her head, like a new food she wasn’t sold on yet. It made sense.

It seemed to make sense to Alice’s mother too, who grunted and said, “Well, I suppose when you put it that way….”

“Bethany, please. Would I mislead you?” Tiffany’s mother laughed. “Oh, and girls?”

Tiffany and Alice froze.

“Yes, you two,” she said in the warm voice. “Tiffany and Alice. If you’re going to eavesdrop, you may as well come over here. Now.”

Tiffany and Alice complied wordlessly, standing up and walking to the veranda, where Tiffany’s mother waited with a smile. “Good spellwork, Alice,” she said, “but you’ve got a lot to learn about secrecy.” She pointed up, and Tiffany looked to see a shimmering patch of air at the top of the veranda—the focal point of the eavesdropping spell.

Alice sighed, and the shimmering dissipated.

“Anyway,” Tiffany’s father continued, “we would have kept this a secret until dinner, but there’s no reason not to tell you now.” He nodded at Alice’s mother. “Beth, would you like to do the honors?”

“What? Yes, right.” Alice’s mother took a deep breath, looking distinctly frazzled. “Alice, you know how your ninth birthday’s coming up next week? And how you’ve always been asking what witch school you’d go to when you were older, and I never replied because we never really had the….”

She trailed off. Tiffany’s mother picked up. “And Tiffany, you know how we’re going to that conference next week?” Tiffany pouted, and her mother added, “You know we’ll do our absolute utmost to get you home in time for Alice’s party. All right, Star?”

Tiffany kept pouting. _Star_ was about as far down as she’d been able to argue her parents from Falling Star, at least with other people around.

“Anyway,” Tiffany’s mother said, “just in case we don’t get back in time, we figured we’d tell you both the big news today. Bethany, if you would?” she said, looking at Alice’s mother.

Alice’s mother seemed to be struggling to get the words out. “Alice,” she began, and bit her tongue. Finally she took a deep breath, and said in trembling tones, “Lamb, you’re going to go to Luna Nova.”

Alice’s jaw dropped like in the cartoons.

So did Tiffany’s, but she got it back up faster. “Alice!” she yelled. “I’m gonna go to Luna Nova too! We’ll get to go together! This is amazing!”

“Nothing but the best for my daughter,” Tiffany’s mother said, stepping forward to ruffle Tiffany’s still-wet hair, “and for my daughter’s best friend. We’ll be covering both your tuitions.”

Alice finally got her mouth muscles working again. “I don’t know… I don’t know what to say,” she said, and heaved a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“That’s an excellent start,” Tiffany’s mother said.

“But wait,” Tiffany said, looking at Alice’s mother. “You said something about a contract.”

“Oh, that?” Alice’s mother smiled. “That’s just the old Gainesbury pride acting up. I could never accept an offer like this without doing a few favors for your family. Boring grown-up stuff, you know.”

Well, if it was boring. Tiffany immediately started ignoring her again and moved in to hug Alice. “This is amazing! We’ll get to go to school together forever!”

“Yeah,” Alice said, and heaved another deep breath. “It’s great.” She smiled, and her skin shone with sweat. “Let’s do that broom race after all, okay?”

“Okay! Thanks, Mother!” Tiffany curtsied, then ran back to where they’d left the brooms. Alice followed at a rather reduced pace. “Last one around is a rotten—hey,” she said, as Alice staggered over. “Are you okay?”

“M’fine,” Alice mumbled, “just kind of hot. I’ll be fine in a bit.”

“All right, but if you have to stop to take a break, I’m not waiting around for you!” Tiffany laughed, then held her broom under herself. “ _Tia freyre!_ ”

The broom lifted her up about a foot and a half from the ground. Behind her, and with less enthusiasm, Alice repeated the words.

“Ready?” Tiffany said. Then, without waiting for a response, she yelled, “Three! Two! One!”

She heard a flump from behind her. Not the sound of someone taking off with a broom, but the sound of someone falling off one.

Tiffany whirled around to see Alice on the ground, face up and eyes unfocused. Her skin looked red, but she wasn’t sweating. “Alice?” Tiffany said.

“Tiffany?” she whimpered. “Something’s wrong, I feel really bad inside, get Mom….” Her eyes flicked left and right wildly. “Mom?” she said, clearly trying to yell, but unable. “Mom—help—”

Tiffany rushed to Alice’s side. “Mother?” she yelled, hearing the panic in her voice without really understanding it. “Something’s really wrong with Alice! It’s okay,” she added, looking back down at Alice, “you just need some water or some shade or something—”

What was that spell for making water? Alice had to know, Tiffany’s mother had to know. Why didn’t Tiffany know? “Mother!” she yelled again, seeing her mother hurry over, but not nearly fast enough.

“Tiffany,” Alice mumbled, “help me—”

Her hand rose from the ground, fingers scrabbling for Tiffany’s sleeve. Then her eyes rolled back, and her hand fell.

“Alice? Are you okay? _Alice!_ ”


	2. Today Is Gonna Be The Day (1)

_Six years later._

Magic had fallen in with a bad crowd.

There was a time, very very recently, when magic had been in the background. Like a butler at a party, magic had been invisible until necessary, on the sidelines. The leylines and the Sorcerers’ Stones had been the only ways to use it at all. It had a place, and it stayed there.

But then came the day when stars fell from the sky.

Now, magic was _in your face_. You could almost _feel_ it on your skin, like humidity. Now magic was the loud, blaring extrovert that everyone had to know, and nowhere was that more true than here in Glastonbury, mere miles from the epicenter of the event that had come to be called Starfall. Here, magic strummed the air like guitar strings, playing strange music across the sky.

As far as Tiffany Vandergard was concerned, the song it was playing was _Wonderwall_.

“Where _is_ she?” she hissed to herself, standing restlessly beside the Glastonbury Tor. Alice was supposed to have been here _twenty minutes ago_. They were supposed to fly to Luna Nova _together_. But the only witches Tiffany could see were a bunch of _newbies_ streaming into the leyline who didn’t even know how to _fly_ properly.

“Too far forward,” she muttered automatically, watching failure after failure fly past. “Too far back. The broom’s upside-down. I know it doesn’t _look_ like it matters whether the broom is right side up or not, but trust me, it _matters_!”

It was infuriating! Magic wasn’t just some _toy_ : magic was _important_ , a grand tradition to be curated and passed down through the ages. And Luna Nova was just letting any old newbie witch in this year! It was like setting a swarm of toddlers loose to fingerpaint all over the Louvre! Didn’t they use to have standards?

And Alice _still_ didn’t arrive. Not even as the stream of newbies became a trickle, and then vanished. “Where the _heck_ —” Tiffany said, but covered her mouth with her hand. She knew better than to use such language, surely!

A few minutes passed with no one. Tiffany grabbed her hat and threw it on the ground in a fit of frustration.

“Hello? Hello down there?”

The voice wasn’t one she recognized. Tiffany hurriedly grabbed her hat, brushed the dirt off, and pulled it back onto her head before looking up to see the new figure. After all, it was important to look dignified before—

Her jaw dropped.

Okay. _Tiffany_ believed it was of the utmost importance to look her best when meeting someone new. The witch landing in front of her, wearing _Groucho Marx glasses_ , clearly didn’t agree.

“Hi!” the witch said, in a chipper voice that made her mustache bristle. “Are you lost?”

There was so much wrong here that Tiffany didn’t know where to begin, so she stared like a frozen computer, which at least gave her a little time to gather more information. The girl ahead of her was maybe a year older than herself—it was hard to tell under the _glasses_ —and did at least seem to be a genuine witch, judging by the broom at her side and the wand tucked into her belt.

Tied to the older witch’s broom was a rope, and at the other end of that rope was not one broom, but two: they hovered parallel to one another, suspending a hammock between them. In that hammock was a girl with mussy, wrinkled robes and her hat pulled over her eyes. Another witch, or else she wouldn’t be able to fly.

 _These_ were witches. A clown and a deadbeat. Magic really was going to _heck_.

Finally, Tiffany managed to respond to at least _one_ of the things wrong with the situation. “I don’t believe I’m lost, no. Since I’m _literally_ right next to the Tor.”

“Well, maybe you didn’t know and you thought you needed to find a bus station or something.” The Groucho witch scratched her chin, pouting. “Or maybe you don’t know how to fly. It can happen!”

Tiffany’s jaw continued to hang loosely. No. No, it couldn’t happen, because the Venn diagram of people who couldn’t fly and people who were witches was _two separate circles_. There was no such thing as a witch who couldn’t fly. Was this some kind of crazy person?

Groucho seemed to remember something and walked forward, thrusting out her hand. “Sorry, I should have introduced myself! I’m Atsuko Kagari! But you can call me Akko, everyone does.”

Finally, something that made sense. Even if it was as basic as an introduction, the intrusion of social protocol into this madness was the cue Tiffany needed to regain her footing. “Tiffany Vandergard,” she said, shaking the Kagari girl’s hand with the gingerness of someone touching a leper. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she lied.

“Likewise!” The girl didn’t seem to be lying, or else was a much better liar than she appeared. Or maybe the Groucho glasses made it impossible to tell, but she seemed to be beaming behind that mustache. “And that’s Charlotte back there. She’s new too!”

The girl in the hammock raised a hand and waved limply, then dropped it back down.

“Charmed!” Tiffany smiled easily. She knew better than to be rude outside her head. “May I ask what precisely it is that you are doing?”

“Ooh, charmed! Witch pun!” Akko giggled, then crept forward, peering at the gateway to the Tor. “Well, last year when I was a freshwitch, I got lost. And then crashlanded in the forest you’re not supposed to crashland in. Which worked out great!” she added, turning around and laughing. The girl was a hyena. “But now there’s no mystical artifacts there anymore, so I was thinking new students might not want to get lost on the way to the leyline or _in_ it, so I’m going around helping lost witches!”

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “What sort of proper witch would get lost?” She turned to Charlotte. “Did you get lost?”

“Meh.” Charlotte didn’t move an inch. Her accent seemed Australian, but for all Tiffany knew it might have been Cockney or anything else. Hard to tell from a monosyllable.

Akko leaned forward, wand tapping the gateway. “Let’s see if I can get this thing to work....”

“Well,” Tiffany stated, folding her arms, “I’m sure no _proper_ witch got lost, anyway.”

The gateway lit up in dancing teal. A numeral formed at the top of the arch: 3.

Akko jumped into the air fist first. “First try! Thank you, Diana!” She turned back to Tiffany and said, “There’s three freshwitches who haven’t gone through yet! You and Charlotte are two, so we’re still missing one….”

Tiffany gasped. “Alice.” When Akko turned to look at her, Tiffany elaborated: “She’s my friend, we were going to meet here—how could she have gotten lost? Was she ill again?” she said, mostly to herself.

“It’s, uh, it’s easier than you think!”

“It is _not!_ You can see the Tor for _miles—_ ” Tiffany was insulting her friend. She shoved a hand over her mouth.

“Well, we’re about to go looking for her.” Akko winked, then jogged back to her broom, bouncing with each step like the ground was a trampoline. “You stay right here, or go through, but the point is, _don’t get lost_ , okay? See you at the opening ceremony!” she called, landing upon her broom and making to take off.

Tiffany’s hand came off her mouth. “Wait!” she said. Akko froze in mid-air, and Tiffany walked forward a few steps—just enough to smoothly and precisely transition onto her broom. Not to toot her own horn, but she made it look easy. “I want to help find Alice too,” she said, moving into a hover beside the still-standing Akko. “She’s my friend. I’d rather see her sooner than later. Especially if she’s sick.”

Akko hesitated for a moment, but her smile came back—like a cloud passing ever-so-briefly before the sun. “All right! In that case, just a sec,” she said, and pulled out her wand and waved it.

Tiffany’s luggage—one large suitcase for clothes, another larger suitcase for personal effects—flew into the air. “Hey!”

“You don’t want to carry all that, do you?” Akko said, twirling her wand again and holding out a bag _much_ smaller than either suitcase. Tiffany’s luggage hovered toward Akko, then formed a sort of vortex above the bag, swirling and shrinking until both items had fit inside. “Bag of holding,” Akko said, smiling proudly beneath the mask as she returned the bag to her belt. “Had to borrow it from my, uh, lady friend. Super duper rare.”

“Okay.” Tiffany took a deep breath. “Can we go now?”

“Almost. _Funem apparenti!_ ”

Her accent was atrocious, but the spell worked: a rope appeared from her wand and tied itself to the back of Akko’s broom, near the other rope already tied there. “Tie this on!” she said, offering the other end of the rope to Tiffany.

“No.”

“What? But how am I gonna be a good mentor if I don’t keep track of you?”

Tiffany scowled fiercely, but was only met with Akko’s good-natured smile. And the girl, strictly speaking, _was_ her senior… so Tiffany sighed, and tied the rope loosely around the front of her broom. It felt like being a pet chihuahua.

“All right! Cleared for takeoff! _Tia freyre!_ ”

“ _Tia freyre_ ,” mumbled the witch in the hammock. Tiffany didn’t know why: she was already hovering.

Then Akko started moving forward, and the rope yanked at Tiffany’s broom. She winced, and impelled it forward on her own so she wouldn’t be getting _towed_ like a _kindergartner_. She couldn’t imagine anyone letting themselves be so patronized.

Until she looked to her right again. And then averted her eyes from the reclining witch, to try to preserve some of her dignity.

But as she did, the witch’s hat rustled. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

The accent was _definitely_ Australian, now that Tiffany had heard a whole sentence. Tiffany rolled her eyes, just out of sight—not that the girl could see. “I very much doubt that, thanks. Unless you’re using mind-reading magic, which would be _quite_ rude.”

“Wish I could, but nah. You’re thinking….” The girl raised her hat, and a mess of ginger hair spilled out, almost covering the girl’s lidded green eyes. She grinned as lazily as everything else she was doing, and nodded toward Akko in front. “What’s with the Groucho glasses?”

Mind reading magic was illegal in most witching jurisdictions. What an odd thing to wish for. In any case…. “Good guess,” Tiffany said, “but no. I was _actually_ wondering why you don’t ride a broom like a regular witch.”

The girl snorted. “Too much effort. I _hate_ effort. For instance….” The girl flopped a hand over the broom to her left, toward Tiffany. “The name’s Char. Short for Charlotte, because Char’s easier to say, right?”

Tiffany took the hand and shook firmly, but it was like grabbing a fish. “Tiffany Vandergard. And I’d be worried if I were you; that’s not the sort of attitude that succeeds at Luna Nova, if they’ve kept any of their standards.”

“Attitude. Right.” Char slid her hand out of Tiffany’s and retracted it into the hammock. “You know what _I_ was thinking? I was thinking I could tell you why Akko’s wearing the glasses.”

“Hmph. I appreciate the thought, but I really am not concerned.”

“It’s so you won’t recognize her.”

Tiffany frowned. “Recognize her? What do you—who would I even recognize her as?”

“Aaaand now it’s gonna bug ya.” Char snorted. “I think I’m gonna call you Tiff. It’s one of those pun things, see?”

“Don’t call me Tiff.” Tiffany narrowed her eyes. “Who would I recognize her as?”

“The alternative’s Fanny. It fits too.”

“Don’t.”

“Cuz you’re a butt.”

“Tiff is fine!”  Tiffany sucked in a breath. “And seriously, who is this Akko person anyway—”

“ _Attention all witches! I mean, just one witch!_ ”

Tiffany nearly fell off her broom at the sudden blast of sound. It was Akko, flying in front of her. They’d reached a point about a hundred feet over the rough center of Blytonbury, and she was using her glowing wand as a microphone, not ten feet away from Tiffany’s delicate eardrums. _Very_ considerate.

“ _We’re looking for a witch who’s trying to get to Luna Nova, but doesn’t know how! If you are that witch, use your wand and send up some sparks, or some kind of signal! We’ll come find you!_ ”

Tiffany had her fingers well-corked into her ears. She glanced at Char, who didn’t seem to be bothered. Maybe it was a noise canceling hat.

“ _I repeat! Send up some sort of signal, sparks or whatever, and we’ll come find you!_ ” Akko waved her wand, and the glowing stopped. “Oh, I didn’t think this through,” she said at a normal volume, glancing back with obvious worry in her eyes. “What if she doesn’t know how to send up sparks?”

“If this hypothetical lost witch doesn’t know how to send up sparks, what on Earth is she doing at Luna Nova?” Tiffany said with gritted teeth.

Akko squinted. “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe she’s trying to _learn how?_ We don’t all start as experts, y’know: isn’t that the point of a school?”

“Whatever.” Tiffany huffed. “If it’s Alice down there, then Alice knows how to send up sparks. We’re about to see a shining beacon, clear as day!”

Then the explosion happened.

“Whoa!” Char shook as the shockwave and sound buffeted the three of them. She leaned over the side of her hammock, looking where Tiffany was already staring in open-mouthed horror: at the rising plume of smoke from a nondescript Blytonbury street. The after-rumbles of the explosion were receding, letting the blaring of car alarms take precedence.

“Okay!” Akko was smiling. Tiffany couldn’t see her, but she knew all the same.  “That’s our witch! I hope!”

Without further ado, Akko dove. “ _Warn me first!_ ” Tiffany yelled as she was yanked down, whereas Char didn’t react to being pulled. Tiffany snarled, reached forward, and untied the offending rope from her broom, then dove harder than Akko. It was a simple matter of leaning deeper, trusting the broom not to let you fall even as your instincts screamed otherwise, and….

She pulled up at the perfect point above the cobblestones, and touched down gently as a feather far ahead of her dawdling chaperone. Tiffany looked up from her landing and saw the witch: a tan-skinned girl in a hijab, cowering beneath the smoke from the explosion that _she_ , no doubt, must have created.

“I’m—I’m sorry!” the girl said, waving her hands at Tiffany, and shouting so as to be heard over the car alarms. “I was trying to just use _Pharus_ and make sparks and, and it got a little out of—” Then she seemed to realize her wand was being held in one of those shaking hands, and she squeaked at it like it was a loaded gun with a loose trigger, and dropped it.

This was not something that anyone should do to a loaded gun with a loose trigger, _or_ a wand. As soon as it struck the street, the wand fired off a blast that shattered a fire hydrant ten yards away, sending fragments everywhere and water spraying straight up.

Tiffany jumped to the side in shock. “What are you doing!” she yelled, grabbing her hair in the same shock. “That’s a highly delicate magical instrument, you can’t just drop it!”

“Sorry!”

“Don’t say _sorry!_ ”

“ _Sorry!_ ” she yelled. This was getting more repetitive than the alarms.

The water from the hydrant was forming a pool in the street, and Tiffany backed away from it slowly. These boots were _expensive._ “Look,” Tiffany said, “you need to fix this. I bet you don’t even know restoration magic, do you?”

The girl shook her head, or at least vibrated it: not a lot of side-to-side motion.

Tiffany sighed, and took a deep breath, and held out her hand. “My name is Tiffany Vandergard. And I’m going to help you fix this before the constable shows up.”

“I-I-Imani,” the girl said. “Imani bint Abdallah al Kairouani.” She didn’t accept the handshake, just stared at the hand like it was a loaded weapon. Which it wasn’t. It was a hand.

Tiffany wished she were home, where people knew how handshakes worked. She composed herself, then walked forward and picked up Imani’s wand in a fluid movement. Holding it like it was… well, maybe still a gun, but one she knew how to handle. One that wasn’t yet loaded.

“Take this,” she ordered. Imani did. Apparently Tiffany was scarier than a wand. “Now,” Tiffany said, pointing her own wand at the hydrant. “Raise your arm like so.”

Imani made her arm parallel to Tiffany’s.

“And repeat after me. _Yera Retoure!_ ”

“ _Yera_ ….” Imani gulped.

“It’s not going to explode. Don’t worry, it’s a restoration spell. Say it.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Imani took a deep breath. “ _Yera_ ….”

“ _Yera Retoure_.”

The yawning, Australian voice came from on high. Tiffany heard a sound like a clock ticking backward, as little red specks of dust arose from the landscape all around and flew back into the plume of water, reassembling themselves into a functioning hydrant. The spray stopped.

Tiffany glared at the descending hammock, which came to a stop about a foot above the leftover pool. “I was _helping_ her fix the mess!” she shouted over the still-blaring alarms.

“Meh.” Char wasn’t even looking at them; her hat was back over her face. “Maybe she can turn the car alarms off so I can sleep.”

“ _Taciturnitas!_ ” yelled Akko, landing just beside Char. The car alarms immediately went quiet.

“Never mind,” Char said, and tucked her arms behind her head. Tiffany heard quiet snores begin.

Akko jumped and hopped and skipped toward Imani. “Hi! I’m Atsuko Kagari, but you can call me Akko—everyone does! That’s Char behind us,” she said, pointing at the hammock, “and it’s short for Charlotte, and I’m _super_ glad that she decided to shorten it to Char and not to Lotte, because I’ve got a friend named Lotte and it would be _super_ confusing. But I guess you’d pronounce them differently,” she added, tapping her chin.

Imani shrank back, toward Tiffany. “Oh!” Akko said, regaining her train of thought. “And it looks like you’ve already met Tiffany!”

“Tiff,” Char called out.

“Tiffany!” Tiffany replied.

“Call her Tiff. She loves it.”

“ _Tiffany!_ ”

“So,” Akko said, waving cheerfully. “What’s your name?”

“I’m… I’m Imani.” Imani forced a smile, but next to Akko’s permagrin it just looked sad. “Imani bint Abdallah al Kairouani.”

Char sat up, squinting under her hat. “Imani Bin Abdul… uh…. Mani. You’re Mani.”

Imani shrank back. “Oh, uh, okay.”

“No, it’s _not_ okay!” Tiffany stomped a foot, staring daggers at Char. Well, she’d already been staring daggers. Now she felt she’d upgraded to swords. “You can’t just give people pet names because you’re lazy!”

“Mani’s cute.” Char shrugged. “And no one’s gonna remember that Imam thing.”

“ _I_ _mani bint Abdallah al Kairouani_.” Tiffany recited it syllable-perfect, then smiled hard at Char. “It’s called _effort_.”

Char groaned and flopped back onto her hammock. Mani raised a timid hand and said, “Um, I’m fine with Mani….”

“No you’re not!” But Tiffany had the sinking feeling that it _was_ fine, after all. That she’d be calling the girl Mani inside her own head.

“ _Okay_ , let’s bring doooooown the tension levels!” Akko thrust her hands out between Char and Tiffany, her mustache wobbling. “I’m Akko, I’m here to fly you safely to Luna Nova, and—”

Mani was laughing, and Akko stopped talking to let her. “I like your glasses,” Mani said, covering her hand with a mouth to stifle the giggles.

“Thanks! They’re prescription.” Akko winked. “Lemme just hold your stuff for you.” Without waiting for a reply, she pulled out the bag of holding, stretched its opening wide, and pulled it over Mani’s luggage—a collection of small suitcases and a cauldron with the price tag still attached. “Do you— _ooh_ , that’s a lot of effort—know how to fly?”

“Um….” Mani’s giggled died away. “Kind of. I’m… not very good at it.”

Mani had tried for sending up sparks, and gotten a bomb blast. Tiffany tried to imagine her taking flight on her own, then imagined the headline, ‘ _Freshwitch Found Dead in Stratosphere_ ’. “Why don’t you tow _her_?” Tiffany said, waving at Akko. “And I can help if she needs it.”

“Great idea!” Akko took the rope that was still tied to her broom and tossed it to Mani instead of Tiffany. “Tie it on!” Mani complied. “All right,” Akko said, “just say _Tia Freyre_ and we can do the rest!”

So: a clown, a sloth, and… well, it didn’t feel right to call Mani an _incompetent_ , no matter how true it was. She’d proven to be great at blowing things up. Tiffany sighed, and joined in the general chorus of “Tia Freyre,” and then winced as Mani’s broom jerked up to flying height almost too fast to see, accompanied by Mani’s yelp. Thankfully it seemed amenable to being led.

As they rose, Tiffany found herself looking for topics of small talk. “So,” she said to Mani. “By your full name… you come from the city of Kairouan, right?”

“What? Oh, yes!” Mani blushed. “I… didn’t expect you to know that.”

“I’m _very_ well trained in social graces, thank you very much.” Tiffany rested a hand on her sternum in pride. “I’ve never been to Kairouan—it’s a bit far afield—but I know it’s got _long_ -standing magic traditions. I’d love to visit.”

Mani averted her eyes toward the ground, which was getting a bit far away. “Yes. Very long-standing.” She was sitting as still on her broom as possible, clearly trying not to lean in any direction that would make the broom move on its own.

“I’m from Perth. It’s a craphole.” Char floated back toward them, presumably by some lazy leaning on her part. “Where you from, Tiff?”

“You weren’t part of this conversation.”

“Hey, we’re all friends here, right? Maybe I’ll just list off big cities until I guess it.” Char shrugged. “Shanghai. Moscow. Jakarta. London. New York. Tokyo—”

“ _New Amsterdam_ ,” Tiffany muttered before she could stop herself.

Char stopped cold mid-city. “What.”

Well, in for a penny…. “It’s _originally_ called New Amsterdam. My family settled it, we named it, it’s _not_ New York City. I don’t care what’s in the books.”

Char’s eyes widened a bit, and she sniggered. “Oh my god. We are going to have so much fun together, Tiff.”

“Please don’t.”

“What’s wrong, _Tiff_ from New _York_?”

Tiffany’s eye twitched.

There was silence for half a minute. Tiffany’s eyes went to the back of Akko. The girl who was supposedly so recognizable that she needed a silly disguise so as not to be recognized. If that was so, then how could Tiffany never have heard the name ‘Atsuko Kagari’?

Either it was a pseudonym—something which the girl didn’t seem to have the sophistication for—or, more likely, Char was just messing with her. It seemed to be all she knew how to do. Tiffany relaxed.

After a few seconds more, she noticed Akko wasn’t relaxed; she kept twitching and glancing back over her shoulder. “What?” Tiffany finally said.

“I’m actually from Tokyo!” Akko yelled. “Well, more like Tokyo area, but it’s easier to say I’m from Tokyo because people know where that is! Whoa—”

A sudden gust of wind caught them. Char and Tiffany rode it easily, but Akko and Mani’s brooms were caught off guard, and they jolted. Akko’s glasses went askew on her face. “Whoops!” she said, laughing a little. “Let me just—”

Tiffany had had enough. “Take those _off_ ,” she said, zooming forward in front of Akko. “You look _ridiculous!_ ” She yanked off the glasses.

 _Just_ the glasses. Tiffany looked down at the frames in her hand, and then back up at the big-nosed, mustached face of Akko. “ _Blah!_ ” Akko cried suddenly, leaning forward, and Tiffany yelped and flinched back despite herself.

This seemed to send Akko into stitches. “Sorry!” she said, pulling out her wand. “But that was _so_ worth it.” She tapped her wand against her nose and said, “ _Metamorphie Faciesse!_ ”

A puff of smoke burst from her face, and Tiffany coughed, but Akko seemed unfazed. “People really underestimate the Animal Transformation Spell,” she remarked as the smoke cleared. “Sure, it’s really basic magic, but it’s _way_ more versatile than most witches give it credit for.”

And then the smoke was gone, and Tiffany saw Akko Kagari’s face for the first time. And her jaw dropped.

Char had not been kidding.

There had been a few minutes, several months ago, on the day the stars fell. A time when tensions on the European continent had been at an all time high, and war as hadn’t been seen in decades was being threatened—over trivial nonsense like a _refereeing scandal_. And then, out of nowhere, a missile had been launched, and no one was even sure whose it was.

And then every screen in the world had turned onto the same footage: the greatest magic show ever witnessed. Two young witches, riding a legendary broom, firing a legendary artifact at a missile engorged with magic, ready to annihilate everything in its blast radius. They’d stopped the missile and saved the world.

 _One_ of the girls had been identified easily, since she was a rising star in the world of magic: Diana Cavendish, from the Cavendish family of witches. The kind of girl Tiffany could expect to be able to pull off such a high-flying stunt. But the other witch—clearly the leader in the endeavor, more bold and daring than Diana—had been some brunette nobody, and _nobody_ knew who she was.

And now Tiffany knew that the second witch was Akko Kagari. “It’s you,” she breathed.

Akko blushed and looked off to the side. “Oh jeez, this part. Professor Chariot keeps saying it gets easier, but….”

A fit of sniggers broke in as Akko’s sentence trailed off. Char was laughing. She’d been telling the truth. The iniquity of this fact had no chance to impress itself on Tiffany’s brain, when her jaw was too busy flapping. “You,” she said, “you, you, uhm, you….”

“Yup, that was me.” Akko scratched her neck. “Well, it was partially me. I had help. But still.”

“You’re the witch who was chosen. Chosen by the, the Sh—… chosen by—”

“Chosen by the Shiny Rod!” Akko declared, clearly forcing the words through her embarrassment. To her credit, she struck an impressive stance, eyes closed and hand proudly against her breast. “I’m Akko Kagari, the witch who’s gonna make everyone smile! Entrusted with the power of the greatest of magical artifacts, the Shiny Rod!”

“The what?”

“Eh?” Akko said, opening her eyes.

Tiffany blinked several times. “I was going to say, chosen by the Shooting Star. What’s a Shiny Rod?”

Akko’s jaw dropped. “You don’t know what the Shiny Rod is?”

“ _You_ don’t know what the _Shooting Star_ is?” Tiffany grabbed her hair, but made sure not to pull. Not yet. She needed this hair for later. “It’s only the most _legendary broom of all time!_ ”

“I mean, I know what it _is._ ” Akko laughed. “But, like… that was the same day I brought back magic and stopped a war? So getting chosen again by the legendary broom, like, took the bronze medal in the ‘crazy things happening to Akko’ competition.”

There was a lot to unpack from that. Tiffany’s jaw flapped, her hands yanking at her hair as if to wrench a response from her head, and she finally settled on, “Chosen _again?_ ”

“Well, it’s more like I chose _it_ the first time, after Amanda stole it from being chained up in the pawn shop—”

“ _THE SHOOTING STAR WAS CHAINED UP IN A PAWN SHOP?”_

Tiffany’s vocal register had gone so high, she sounded like she was on helium. She took a few deep steadying breaths, hair still painfully gripped.

“Look,” Akko said in a placating kind of tone. “I love the Shooting Star, okay? It saved my literal life. I couldn’t have been luckier to get a broom that flies itself, especially considering I couldn’t fly on my own at the time.”

Somewhere in Tiffany’s brain, she was thanking her genetics for having such strong hair, because otherwise she’d have ripped off two huge handfuls by now. The rest of her brain was trying and failing to process what she’d just heard. She was probably foaming at the mouth, too.

Finally, Tiffany just let herself slow to a standstill in midair, long enough for Akko, mercifully, to pass her. Mani and Char were approaching from behind, so Tiffany shook her head and took more deep breaths. She was an _excellent_ witch of _excellent_ stock, and she was not going to have a conniption about how a girl who _couldn’t even fly_ had ridden the _actual Shooting Star_.

Deep breaths.

Mani flew up beside her, still towed by her rope, and Tiffany fell into formation to her left. “Is the flying going well?” she asked.

“Mm,” Mani said. She glanced nervously at the ground every few seconds, but seemed otherwise fine. Then she looked forward at Akko. “Did she say she’s the one who brought back magic?”

“Yes, she did.” Another deep breath, and then Tiffany continued. “Whether you _believe_ that is another question.”

“Hm. I don’t think I like her very much.”

A little fire of companionship lit in Tiffany’s heart, and she flew a little closer to Mani. “Yes. Me neither.”

Then she stared at Char.

Despite having that hat over her face, Char seemed to notice for after a few seconds. Maybe she just noticed the silence. “What?” she said, pulling up the hat to stare with no small amount of confusion.

“Aren’t you going to offer some needlessly contradictory and inflammatory opinion?” Tiffany asked, smiling brightly. Like one of those predators with flashy colors, she thought.

“Uh… no? You mean the magic coming back thing, right?” Char shrugged with, as usual, the minimum possible amount of motion. “I don’t hate it but, like, it’s not really doing anything for me.”

Tiffany nodded sharply. Nothing was quite so nice as reaching consensus.

“Though I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t be so bitchy about it if your friend hadn’t ditched you,” Char added, pulling the hat back down.

Tiffany glared _pikes_ at her, feeling her mouth ratchet open to let out the _mother_ of all torrents of abuse—but it was pointless. The hat Char was wearing might as well have been noise canceling. It was an armor Tiff didn’t know how to pierce.

She was _not_ being ‘bitchy’ just because of Alice!

They approached the Tor, and then floated through the gateway.

Akko’s wand flashed, and she pulled it out and waved it: a big glowing _0_ appeared in the air. “All right, that’s every witch through!” she said.

They floated up toward the leyline. Beside Tiffany, Mani gasped at the vortex overhead, like a forest floating through luminescent space. Above them, Akko leaned down. “All right! Everyone ready?” she said. “We should have _plenty_ of time to get you all to orientation before it starts! No close calls like last time!”

Tiffany squinted. Last time, huh?

The four witches kept going, and the leyline took them. Not gently. That wasn’t how leylines worked. Instead, Tiffany felt the familiar stretching, like she was a slingshot being pulled back and also the ammo inside.

And then… _go_. She snapped forward and everything went green.

When the moment passed, the first thing she noticed was that she was in the leyline. Tied for second were the pair of arms constricting her midriff and the sound of hyperventilation from behind her. She looked back and saw Mani, or at least the top of Mani’s head, because her face was buried in Tiffany’s back. “Are you, er, okay?” Tiffany said.

“No.”

“Right.” Tiffany didn’t know what to do there.

The _third_ thing was Akko. She was sitting all wrong on her broom. With a load of two other brooms tugged behind her, the way she was just _slouching_ over her broom, it was all wrong! Didn’t she know how dangerous improper form could be—

Of course she didn’t. This was the witch who had admitted to knowing nothing of broom-riding only half a year ago. It would be like correcting a toddler; Tiffany would need patience and a gentle touch.

“You’re doing it wrong!” she yelled.

Akko glanced back. “What now?”

Tiffany zoomed forward, dragging Mani behind her. “You’re way too sloppy with your stance,” she said, tapping Akko’s broom. “You need to sit up more!”

Akko stared at her. Not smiling. So the permagrin had a limit. “I’m doing it _fine_ ,” she said.

“Don’t look down,” Mani repeated behind her. “Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look—”

“You need to take this _seriously!_ ” Tiffany said, and grabbed the other girl, just to adjust a little bit. “With two other brooms towed behind you, you don’t _have_ margin for error!”

Why was Akko fighting back? “I have _plenty_ of ‘margin for error’, now leave me alone before you mess me up!” she said, trying to push Tiffany away.

She darted back, but Tiffany did too. Then she darted left, and so did Tiffany. And on and on. On for a bit too long, in fact.

“Uh, gals,” Char said, as the two of them were pulling one another’s hair, “the ropes.”

It was the note of concern in Char’s voice, however muted, that grabbed Tiffany’s attention. She looked down and noticed two more things: firstly, that the ropes tying Akko’s, Mani’s, and Char’s brooms had snarled; and secondly, that they were sinking. “Oh no,” she whispered.

“No,” Akko muttered, “are you _kidding me_? We’re doing this _again_?” Then she glanced up at Tiffany and put on a damning smile. “Hey, you’re good with riding brooms, right? Do you know what the best position is to crash on one?”

“What? There _is_ no best position!”

Akko’s mouth widened, showing more teeth and a whole lot less smile. “You might wanna pick one anyway.”

Tiffany screamed, and they fell out of the leyline.


	3. Today Is Gonna Be The Day (2)

“We almost died,” Mani kept saying, sprawled on a tangle of roots. “We almost died, we almost died, _we almost died_ —”

Akko struggled with the ropes for a few seconds longer, then untied the last knot. “There we go! All done!” With the ropes gone, Char started floating again, humming a little in contentment. She hadn’t gotten out of her hammock the whole time.

“So,” Akko said, grinning a bit too wide, “there’s a _lot_ of pieces of good news. And one kinda big piece of bad news, but good news first! We’re all still in one piece, we’ve all got our luggage—” she picked up the bag of holding and shook it briefly “—we _didn’t_ land next to Wagandea, and we still stand a good chance of making it to the ceremony on time! The bad news is—”

“ _My broom!_ ” Tiffany shrieked.

Akko’s untying had pulled away the ropes, and as it turned out, those ropes had been the only thing keeping Tiffany’s broom in a simulation of one piece. With it gone, she saw the fractures: it had broken into four. She clutched the pieces close to her, shivering.

“Hoo!” Akko’s voice came from right behind her, followed by a short laugh. “ _Wow_ , this feels like old times. Anyway, I was going to say, the _bad_ news is—”

Tiffany whirled around. “ _You broke my broom!_ ”

“No,” Akko said again, “that’s not the bad news. The bad—”

“ _It is too the bad news!_ I got this broom for my _birthday_ , it’s _irreplaceable_ , it’s an _A grade broom_ , and you _broke it!_ ”

Then Tiffany quailed as Akko jabbed a suddenly-furious finger at her mouth. “We are in the _Forest of Arcturus_ , which is the _bad_ news, so _shut up!_ ”

Tiffany shut up.

“There are _dangerous things_ here,” Akko whispered. Mani covered her mouth with both hands to stifle a squeak, and Akko continued, “Mandrakes that think witches taste delicious. Cockatrices that can turn you to stone with a single breath. And I really hope we’re nowhere near Wagandea, because it’s still flowering, and its pollen can take away a witch’s flight—or magic—for good.”

“Flight?” Tiffany whispered.

“Magic?” Mani probably said, though it was tough to make out what she was saying behind her hands.

Akko looked up at the dense canopy of trees. “I don’t think we can really fly away from here. And I _used_ to know a spell that could get us out… kind of… not really. It doesn’t really work when you want it to. So I’m gonna be a _good_ mentor, and lead us forward so we can walk to a clearing.”

“What if we just sent up a signal?” Char said, and then floated forward so she could prod Mani. “You’re good at it, right? Use that spell you did earlier, the Pharus thing.”

“A—are you sure?” Mani asked.

“What’s the worst that could happen, right?”

“O—okay.” Mani raised her wand in a shaking hand, shielding her eyes with her hat. “ _Pharus_.”

“Hey, what are you—don’t!” Akko yelled, lunging toward Mani and Char. A bit too late.

_BOOM._

They all stared up at the explosion as it dissipated into thin air, then winced as a shower of shredded branches fell down. “Oh, no,” Akko muttered, hands grabbing her face from stress. “Now the whole forest knows exactly where we are. We need to _move_.” With that she strode quickly in a direction, picked apparently at random.

Tiffany glared up too. There was a small, wonky tubular series of holes in the canopy, where their group had broken through branches on their fall, and Mani’s spell had blown it somewhat wider. _She_ could have flown up through it, if her broom wasn’t _broken_!

She clutched it tighter in her arms, then huffed, and shoved the pieces into her bag before hurrying after Akko as she departed. “That was an _A grade broom_ ,” she said again. Mani and Char trudged and hovered, respectively, behind them. Mani seemed to be towing Char, in fact.

Akko groaned. “I’m sorry it’s broken. When we’re out of the forest and have a flat surface to work with, I can try using restoration magic on it, okay?”

“I thought you said you ‘brought back magic’, and here you are saying any old restoration magic could fix this?” Tiffany tsked. “Brooms are _special_. I’m going to need to see a master craftsman for the repairs. It could take weeks.” She glared up at her elder. “And _you’re_ footing the bill.”

“What?” Akko exclaimed, head turning in a flash to glare down at her. “No way! You’re the one who broke it!”

“ _I’m_ the one—?”

“ _Yes, you are!_ ” Akko gritted her teeth, then took a deep breath before continuing a little more calmly. “You got the ropes tangled up by trying to quote unquote _fix_ my flying. You’re the reason we’re in this mess. So _you_ foot the bill.” She tossed her head. “Besides, you’re the rich girl. You’re more financially capable.”

Tiffany stopped for a moment, and when she started again, she stumbled. “How did you—owwww—” she hopped on one foot, having bumped her other ankle on a root “—how did you know I was rich?”

“Are you _kidding?_ ” Akko let out a laugh. “You know, I used to think all rich people acted like you. Snooty, always thinking they know best, _elitist_. And then I met this guy, and this girl….” She blushed. “And heck, even Hannah and Barbara have come around.”

She looked down at Tiffany with something like contempt. “And now you come along. And now I’m worried I’m gonna start thinking badly of them again, just by association with _you_.”

Tiffany tried to open her mouth and say something, and succeeded at the first of those. A few seconds later, she remembered to close it.

Akko sighed, and rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry, that was mean. I’m kind of stressed out. I’ve crash-landed in this forest enough for one lifetime already, and that was _without_ being responsible for a bunch of freshwitches. And I doubt there’s any cool magical artifacts waiting to be claimed this time, either.”

“You’re not responsible for us,” Tiffany said. “Not for _me_ , at least.”

“I am responsible for you.” Akko stopped and put her hands on Tiffany’s shoulders. “And I promise you, I’m gonna get you to Luna Nova in time for the opening ceremony. Because if I can’t do that, how can I be a witch that makes everyone smile?”

Tiffany shook her off and marched forward. Akko continued behind her, a little whine of dismay escaping her lips. Tiffany gritted her teeth: a witch who makes everyone smile? What good did that do anyone? The point of magic was—

“So,” Char said in the back, “here’s how I figure it’s all Tiff’s fault. You know about how the leyline hates salt, right?”

“Yes?” Mani replied.

“Well, Tiff’s been salty as _hell_ the whole time. So she’s the reason we crashed.”

There was an awkward pause. “Er,” Mani finally said, “I do not think I understand.”

“It’s a joke. Salty is, like, slang. It means angry, upset, super bitter. You can laugh now.”

“Ah. Ha ha. I don’t know….” Mani’s voice went a little quieter. “She was nice to me.”

“Well, you’re really cute and in need of protection. Stands to reason. But I’m lazy and Akko’s a mess, so she zeroes in on that and doesn’t see anything else. Typical stuck-up.”

Tiffany could take no more, and whirled around. “Charlotte, are you _paralyzed_ , or are you _actually_ that lazy—”

Which was why Tiffany was the first one to see the giant bird’s face behind them.

Tiffany took a step backward and tapped Akko on the shoulder. “What—” Akko began, and then spun around and saw the cockatrice, and clamped both hands over her mouth. Mani, noticing the both of them, looked up at the cockatrice and went deathly still. Even Char deigned to glance up.

The cockatrice stared at them, tilting its head from side to side. Apparently it didn’t know if they were a threat. Then again, if Tiffany remembered anything about this animal, it was that it didn’t care whether something was a threat or not.

Akko gingerly took one hand off her mouth, and jabbed hard behind her—away from the cockatrice—with a thumb. Then she held up that hand, with three fingers.

Her ring finger went down. _Two_.

Tiffany tensed, and saw Mani doing the same behind her.

 _One_. Akko’s other hand was slowly reaching for her wand, tucked in her belt. Tiffany hoped she was going for some very powerful magic.

 _Zero_.

Tiffany and Mani ran. “ _Duck!_ ” Akko yelled as she whipped out her wand, and then she bellowed, “ _Metamorphie faciesse!_ ” A blast of magic flew just over Tiffany’s head and bounced off the cockatrice’s beak. It crowed to the sky in anger, at an ear-splitting volume.

“That didn’t work! _Run!_ ” she yelled, her voice close behind Tiffany and Mani.

“ _Metamorphie faciesse?_ ” Tiffany yelled back. “ _Are you kidding me?_ ” The ground was so tangled with roots that she had to devote her full attention to where she was stepping, and could hardly chance a glance back.

“Is _that_ a cockatrice?” Mani called, stumbling as she went. She didn’t seem to have Tiffany’s coordination, _and_ she was still towing Char behind her.

“ _Charlotte!_ ” Tiffany yelled. “Get moving on your _own!_ ” At this, Char zoomed forward, taking the lead. “And _yeah_ , it _is_ a cockatrice!”

There came a stomping sound from behind them. About the size of sound a giant, angry bird might make if it were chasing four irritating witches. Mani shrieked in dismay. “ _I hate magic!_ ”

Akko gasped. Even considering her heavy breathing, this was definitely a gasp. “How—can you— _metamorphie faciesse!_ —hate magic?” Another magic blast sounded behind them, but with no corresponding cockatrice cry, it was obvious that Akko had missed in her haste.

“ _How is this the time!?_ ” Tiffany yelled. “ _Forget it!_ ” She twisted around and pulled out her wand. “ _Foraen Mugrowna!_ ”

The spell didn't hit the cockatrice, only meters behind them, but that wasn’t the point. It struck the trees around it, and they came to life, their branches and roots rising up to ensnarl the bird’s foot.

The cockatrice shrieked again, and took a few hopping steps, snapping some of the wood. But it couldn’t regain its balance, and it slowly started teetering forward.

“ _Faster!_ ” Akko shrieked, and they all obeyed without any need for argument. The cockatrice was going to land _on_ them, and there wasn’t another way through the forest.

“Ow!” Tiffany yelled, catching her ankle on a loose root. She stumbled forward, nearly plowing face-first into some bark, and caught the brush of one of Char’s brooms with her flailing hand. Char’s hammock wobbled, and she fell back a bit, just behind Akko.

The cockatrice crashed into the ground, wheezing as the air was forced from its lungs. Momentum kept all four of them going, and they burst forward into a clearing atop a cliffside. The soil was rough and barren as it approached the edge, with no plant life atop it.

Tiffany, Akko, and Mani skidded to their respective halts, while Char drifted slowly to one, rather closer to the edge; she was flying already, and didn’t have anything to fear from the drop. Tiffany whirled around and pointed at the cockatrice. “ _In your face!_ ” she whooped. “Now _that_ is witchcraft! Stopping a monster, _helping_ people—or should we have tried to make the cockatrice _smile_?” she said, pointing suddenly at Akko.

“Good going, Tiffany,” Akko said without much enthusiasm.

“And we’re in a clearing!” Mani said. “We can use our brooms now and get to the academy!” It was an incredible view, indeed; though Tiffany could not see Luna Nova, she could see the expansive Forest of Arcturus spread before them like an ocean. From above, it was almost beautiful.

“Guys,” Char said, facing the open air, “I think something’s really wrong.”

Her voice was shaking.

Akko rushed forward and spun her around, and then planted a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no,” she said in a muffled voice. Char’s boots, and the bottom of her robe, had turned to stone.

And as Tiffany watched, the stone crept upward.

“A cockatrice’s breath,” Mani said. “Turns you to stone.” She gasped. “Char, you’re….”

“Got that, thanks, Mani,” Char said through gritted teeth. She shivered, first once and then continuously. “It’s so, so cold,” she whispered.

“Charlotte,” Tiffany said. “I—we need to get you to Luna Nova—”

Char sat bolt upright, staring at Tiffany with such an ugly expression that Tiffany felt herself turn to stone a little. “ _You_ ,” Char said, her voice harsh like sandpaper. “What is _wrong_ with you? Did your parents _hit_ you as a kid for you to turn out this _screwed up_ , or were you _always_ a stupid asshole?”

“What? They would never—what?”

“ _You’re_ the one who made it fall over and breathe on me.” Char rounded on her, hovering closer and closer. “ _You’re_ the one who crashed us into this stupid forest in the first place! It’s all _your_ fault!”

Tiffany had known her for only about half an hour, but even so it was shocking to see that expression on her face. That grimace of hatred. “I—I was trying to help—”

“Then _stop helping!_ ” Char yelled, and shoved Tiffany back toward the edge.

A moment later, Char’s eyes went wide with realization, but Tiffany found her footing well before she went over. She glared at Char. “Do you ever even _think_ about what you’re—”

The ground beneath her crumbled. The ground in front of her flew upward.

She heard Akko scream, “Tiffany!”, but the rushing wind was louder.


	4. Today Is Gonna Be The Day (3)

“Oh my god,” Char said.

Tiffany had disappeared from view scant seconds ago, and it seemed like such a short time when it was said like that. Scant seconds. Not an uncrossable gulf. Mani stared, hand outstretched, at the place where she’d tried to grab Tiffany that lifetime ago.

“Oh my god,” Char repeated, and looked down. “I killed her.” Her mouth hung loosely for several seconds.

Silence hung in the air.

“Well,” she finally managed, “she killed me too, so… fair’s fair?”

Something frothing and ugly bubbled up in Mani’s chest. She strode forward, pulled back her outstretched hand, and used it to smack Char across the face. “Ow!” Char said. “Mate, I’m _literally_ dying— _Ow!_ ”

“Fair is _not_ eye for an eye!” Mani yelled, hauling back to slap her a third time. “Don’t even _joke_ about that!”

“Oh my _god!_ Be right back!” Akko called out, and jumped over the edge, broom firmly in hand.

Mani scrambled closer to the edge, ready to grab Char’s brooms if any more of this ground crumbled beneath her, and saw Akko mount her broom in midair and keep accelerating. She bit her lip in fear, and then seized up: down at the bottom of the cliff was a second, tiny shape.

Akko went down and inspected the shape for a bit, then flew back up as fast as possible. “She’s alive!” she said. “I think she used some magic to break her fall, but I don’t know if I can move her, and _you’ve_ got the stone thing, and, and….” She was hyperventilating.

“Miss Akko?” Mani said.

“I, uh, I, I… _signal!_ ”

“What?”

Akko fumbled in her robes for a second, then pulled out a rectangular device. “Need to find a signal!” she yelled, and then zoomed away out over the trees. Char and Mani were now alone.

Char breathed heavily. Mani didn’t know if it was relief or pain. “Didn’t kill her,” Char said. “Good. Just _nearly_ killed her. Not even to Luna Nova, and I almost kill someone. And Mom and Dad wonder why I didn’t wanna come?”

“Don’t talk,” Mani said, grabbing Char’s brooms and pulling her slowly back from the edge. “Not while you’re sick.”

“You mean, while I can still move my mouth?” Char sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. “Come on. Talk about something. Anything, please. Like… why do you hate magic?”

Mani sat down and hugged her knees. “That’s kind of personal.”

Char sank close to the ground beside her. “Promise I won’t tell.” She winked, then shuddered again as the stone moved a little further, up to her shins, almost at her knees. “Please start talking. I don’t want to think about this.”

Mani squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look. “Well, I didn’t use to be a witch. My mom and grandmom areone, but when I was born, I never could do any magic. Not even a little. And my parents were fine with it, and _I_ was fine with it, because… I’ve watched magic shows, you know? Not live, just recordings. Like Chariot. Ever heard of her?”

Char nodded.

“Well… magic is great from far away. But up close… it’s the difference between watching fireworks and being strapped to one. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” Char said. “Keep going, keep going.”

“But then, earlier this year… there was that broadcast, on Starfall. Those two witches, fighting that missile… Akko was one of them. And that’s why I believe she brought back magic.” She narrowed her eyes. “And that’s why I think I hate her, just a bit.”

“Hate?”

Mani clenched her fists. “Because right after that broadcast, I started _having magic_. And I can’t control it. All I can do is make stuff blow up. It’s a nightmare. So that’s why I had to come to Luna Nova… to either learn how to _control this_ , or….”

She looked up, off into the distance. A giant tree was visible, twirling into the heavens so high that its top could not be seen. Yellow-white pollen wafted from all parts of it, and she could see some flowers.

“Or get _rid_ of it.”

“Sounds like _you_ care,” Char said, and sniggered a little. “Must be nice. By the way, question: when you talk about getting rid of magic….” She tapped her knees, which had gone grey, with a finger. “Does this count?”

“Stop that!” Mani cried out, pounding the ground with a fist. “How can you just… _joke_ about your own _death_ so casually!”

Char was silent for several seconds. “Must be nice to care,” she murmured. “Tiff seems happy. Akko seems happy. And you seem angry. Must be nice.”

Mani leaned closer and took her hand. “Why do _you_ want to go to Luna Nova?”

“I don’t.” Char chuckled again. “I don’t, like, _want_ things. Or think things, or do things. It’s just, I have magic, my parents had cash. This was the next thing on the agenda for me, you know? It was easier to come than not. So I guess you can see, I’m not super excited about magic coming back either.”

She giggled, looking down as the stone claimed her thighs. “And now… this is one of those poetic justice things, isn’t it? My folks always said doing nothing was bad for me.” A few tears leaked down her face. “Guess I failed at the whole ‘not thinking about it’ thing, didn’t I?”

Mani gripped Char’s hand a little tighter. “I don’t want you to become a statue.”

“Well, if you’ve got any ideas about how to stop it….” Char gripped her hand in return. “That would really rock.”

Mani stared out at the open expanse before them.

“It’s a pun, see? _Rock,_  because—”

“I understand. Even though I’m not laughing.” Mani sighed. “I hope Tiffany’s all right.”

“Me too.” Char sniffed. “It’s kinda funny. I don’t think Tiff liked magic coming back either. So I guess we’ve all got something in common.”

Mani snorted. “I guess so.”

* * *

_You’re my little falling star!_

_Why do you even call me that, anyway?_

_Because you’re a Vandergard, Tiffany. And when a Vandergard touches down, she always makes a big_ impact.

Tiff's eyes shot open, and she gasped for breath.

She was in a crater. Well, not precisely a _crater—_ more of an indentation. She vaguely remembered having used a spongification spell on the ground just before landing, which must have softened the blow enough to save her life, though—she groaned with each long breath—not enough to stop it from aching. And aching a _lot_ , she realized, as she reasserted control over her senses.

Oh, when she got back up there, she was going to _kill_ Char.

“Hello?” she yelled, getting unsteadily to her feet. The ground distended beneath her feet as she rose, and she quickly backed off the patch of ground she'd enchanted, letting it bounce back into shape. She took some breaths, relishing the steady earth beneath her, then yelled, “Hello? I'm down here! I'm fine! Come get me!”

No response—they had to be too high up to hear, and probably weren't looking down. She cupped her hands around her mouth, breathed in to shout again, and then stopped and laughed at herself. She grabbed for her wand, brought her hand up to her neck, and said, “ _Amplifi_ —”

There was no wand.

Tiffany froze, looked down at her empty hand, and laughed at herself. Muscle memory had tricked her, and of course her wand was just somewhere else on her belt—no, no it wasn't. It had to be somewhere on the ground....

“Hello?” she yelled again, trying not to think about how her yell sounded a little more frantic this time. “Can you hear me?” This wasn't actually happening, of course, this was just one of those crazy bad dreams, like when she would go to school and forget her homework, or her pants, or her prepared speech—there was no way she could have lost her wand in the underbrush of a forest that went on _forever_ and where things routinely got lost until _eternity—_

“ _Help!_ ” she shrieked, hands cupped around her mouth. “I don't have a _wand_ , I don't have a _broom_ , I don't have _anything!_ I'm stuck! Please! _Hello!_ ”

She might as well have been demanding a response from the cliff face itself.

Tiffany sank to her knees. Why weren't they coming down for her? They all still had brooms—they could come to save her, right? Why weren't they—

_They'd left._

It made perfect, logical sense. The kind of sense that crushed Tiff as if between gears in a giant clockwork. Char needed medical attention, and they were now able to fly out of the forest: they'd leave as soon as possible, leaving all dead weight behind.

There was no weight deader than the one whose blunders had crashed them into the forest, had gotten Char petrified, in the first place.

“Shut up,” she mumbled at herself. That didn't make sense, right? She was _good_ at getting along with other people, wasn't she? They wouldn't just _leave_ someone behind who was just _trying to help_ , would they?

_Alice did._

“Shut up,” she whispered.

_Alice ditched you, and now they have too, because you're worthless._

“ _Shut up!_ ” This time she didn't whisper: she yelled at the top of her lungs.

And immediately went very quiet indeed. Hands over her mouth, crouching and cowering in horror, everything. This was a forest full of the most dangerous creatures that witch-kind had ever seen, and she'd just been yelling for over a minute.

The thought was a lens, distorting her view of the world. Every whisper of movement in the trees that crowded close was a monster, approaching and ready to gore her. Every rustling hint of sound was the footfall of a beast, inches behind her _back—_

She turned around and fled.

* * *

Diana was patting Professor Chariot’s shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting way, and then _Fanfare for the Common Man_ blared loudly from her pocket.

It was slightly mortifying, here in the Great Hall of Luna Nova, but Diana was equal to it. “Excuse me,” she said to Professor Chariot and the assembly in general, before turning on her heel and walking away. Smooth as silk.

As soon as she was out of sight, she hurried behind a pillar and whipped her phone out. She used that ringtone for one person only—one person who wasn’t _here_ yet. “Akko!” she hissed, as soon as the phone was against her ear. “Where _are_ you? Professor Chariot is worried sick!”

“ _DIANA!_ ”

And Diana had thought the ringtone was loud. She almost fumbled her phone at the ear-rending shriek, and rushed to catch it. Akko kept yelling, her voice clearly visible as though she were on speakerphone. “We’re lost in the Forest of _Arcturus_ and Char’s turning to _stone_ and Tiffany’s at the bottom of a _cliff_ and she’s alive but I don’t know if we can _move_ her and I don’t know what to _do_ and _I’m the worst mentor ever!_ ”

“Akko, stop!” Diana declared.

Akko stopped.

“Deep breaths,” Diana said, and breathed in and out with her. “Okay. So. One problem at a time. That’s the only way to deal with big things like this: one problem at a time. You’re lost in Arcturus.”

Akko made an “Mm-hm” noise.

“That shouldn’t be too bad. You’ve made it out of Arcturus before, right? Twice now. You can do it.”

“Okay. The stone thing?”

Diana took a deep breath. “Cockatrice?”

“Yeah, it got Char’s feet. It’s spreading. I don’t know what to do. Your family has all that secret healing knowledge, you’ve _gotta_ know something!”

“I think…. One second.” Diana pulled up a messaging app on her phone and sent a quick message to the Cavendish estate: “ _Need information: how to reverse cockatrice breath petrification. Check family library. Highest possible priority. Please confirm receiving this message._ ”

Scant seconds later, she got the reply: “ _Confirmed_. _-Anna_ ”

“Anna got my message,” Diana said, pulling the phone back to her ear. “If it’s in our records, she’ll find it. In minutes.”

“I hope we _have_ minutes—”

“You’ll have minutes,” Diana said sharply, cutting Akko off before she could panic again. “Deep breaths. _Next problem_. Witch who fell off a cliff?”

“Her name’s Tiffany, and she’s alive but I don’t know if it’s safe to move her!” Akko cried out, but then remembered herself, sucked in a deep breath, and held it. Diana imagined the sight, Akko’s cheeks inflated with trapped air, and couldn’t help but smile.

Akko exhaled and continued, “I know there’s some stuff where if you have a spine injury, you can’t move the victim or you could paralyze them. So I don’t want to just levitate her.”

“ _Apparenti lectulo_. It’s a spell that creates a stretcher. You can conjure one under her and lift that. Be careful, and she should be fine.” Diana let her voice relax a bit. “You can do this.”

A _ping_ sounded from her phone. Diana held it before her and read the message from her maid Anna, then beamed and dashed off a quick reply: “ _Thank you so much. You’re a lifesaver._ ”

“Akko!” she said into her phone. “That witch who got petrified—Char, you said her name was? Make sure she doesn’t stop moving. The stiller she is, the faster it spreads. Moving fast enough can reverse the process, but the witches from Beatrix’s era didn’t have a way to reach those kinds of speeds. They estimated, over a hundred miles per hour, sustained for a whole minute. Find a way to do that!”

“Got it!” Akko said. And _there_ was some of the determination.

“So now you know what to do?” Diana asked.

“Yeah! That’s all the problems! Thanks!”

“Not all of them.” Diana sighed. “Akko, you’re not the worst mentor ever.”

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds. “I am, though. Two of my mentees are nearly dead. That’s really not good.”

Diana sat down, her back still against the pillar. “You messed up. A lot. It’s what you do—but the other thing you do is, you never stop trying to make it right. So you’re going to fix this, and you’re going to become the best mentor anyone’s ever seen. Promise?”

“Yeah. Yeah! I promise!” Diana could see Akko’s shining smile through the phone, and it made her smile almost as bright. “Thanks, Diana. You’re the best.”

“Any time.” Diana chuckled. “See you soon.”

“Love you!”

“I... “Diana shook herself. “I feel... similarly.”

“Oh, Diana.” Akko chuckled. “One day, we’ll get there.”

Diana clicked the hang-up button, waited a few seconds to savor her smile, and then took a deep breath to regain her composure. She still had another freaked out mentor to comfort, after all.

* * *

“Speed up Char, put Tiffany on a stretcher,” Akko murmured to herself, hunched low over her broom and diving down toward the top of the cliff where Char and Mani were. Now that she thought of it, Tiffany had probably moved really fast when she fell off that cliff, and Char was already basically on a stretcher. If only they’d switched places—

Bad brain! Off topic!

She landed briefly on the cliffside and rushed over to Char’s side. “Char! The curse moves faster if you’re not moving! Keep trying to fight it off! I’ve gotta go get Tiffany and then I’ll figure something out!”

Oh, she wished she hadn’t said it like that. That just made it sound like she hadn’t figured it out yet, which was _true_ , but still—but at least Char was moving now, Her body was petrified up to her thighs, but at Akko’s words, she nodded and started shaking her midriff as much as she could.

“Gotta go, be back soon, bye!” Akko ran back to the cliffside, and in one fluid motion she jumped on her broom and dove over the edge. She could _do_ this, she had a _plan_. She’d been on a broom moving super fast before, and she was pretty sure she remembered how it had been done—

Oh no.

Akko landed on the ground, which sank heavily as her weight rested upon it. A spongification spell, perfectly designed for minimizing the damage from a fall, and probably the thing that had saved Tiffany’s life. She’d done a good job casting it in midair.

But Tiffany wasn’t here.

Akko grabbed her hair with both hands and screamed.

* * *

_Is it me?_

In the underbrush of the Forest of Arcturus, even a witch as filled with fear and adrenaline as Tiffany couldn't sprint for very long. She'd stayed along the wall of the cliff, hoping to find some sort of path back to the top, and she'd gotten nothing but a thousand cuts to the legs and two lungs full of carbon dioxide. With her luck, she probably had ticks too.

Now exhaustion had buried fear. Tiffany leaned against the cliff, heaving air into her lungs. She faced the rock, and she couldn't hear a thing over the sound of her labored breaths, and of that question ringing in her head.

_Is it me?_

She _could_ make friends. She _could!_ She'd done it before. And yet this time they'd only been driven away—what would Mother say? Tiffany kept heaving breaths, and she didn't have the strength to shout defiance this time. In the depths of the Forest of Arcturus, it was easy to feel like a failure.

It was also easy not to hear an approaching monster until it was too late. Tiffany heard the faintest hiss, felt her blood chill, then turned around on the spot.

The hiss was coming from a plant with teeth. Tiffany knew a mandrake when she saw one.

She bolted.

Yet more branches and stalks cut at her legs, and her lungs burned with fresh fire, but she ignored them all and ran forward, still hugging the cliffside. The hissing and howling of the mandrake—mandrakes, if she was unlucky—stayed behind her, and impelled her to run even faster as it or they got nearer.

But then she came to a dead end. A little crag jutted from the cliff, creating a V shape which she had foolishly run into. As she saw her mistake and whipped around, it was too late to run out: the mandrakes—three of them, confirming her fears—crowded forward, blocking the exit.

Tiffany gasped and pressed herself against the wall, putting that little iota more of distance between her and the plants. But they just crept closer and closer, mouths open. Ready to chew her to shreds: an ignominious end for an ignominious witch.

“ _No!_ ”

Her foot lashed out and kicked the closest one. It hissed and drew back, and even without eyes, the other two stared at her in shock.

“ _No!_ ” Tiffany yelled again, kicking again, with no idea if she was hitting or not. “I’m not dying down here! I’m going to get back up that cliff, and I’m going to apologize, and I’m going to fix this! I'm going to save Char!”

The mandrakes didn't take long to overcome their initial shock. They crept closer, bobbing around her kicks, waiting for the moment to strike.

“And _then_ ,” Tiffany yelled, “I’m going to get to Luna Nova, and I’m going to become a witch who saves people! I’m going to be a witch who saves _everyone!_ ”

The closest mandrake lunged for her.

And then was pierced right through the top by a long, red spear.

Tiffany blinked, her jaw slowly opening, as the spear twisted its way out of the closest mandrake, which let out a shuddering cry. Then the spear whirled around and chopped off the other two mandrakes at their bases.

And no one was wielding the spear. And it had a crop of feathers at the end.

Which meant it wasn’t a spear, it was a broom. A broom that could fly itself.

Tiffany’s jaw was fully open.

It _couldn’t_ be.

The spear—the broom—the _Shooting Star_ took to a hovering position, and she noticed something tucked in its tail feathers. “My wand!” she yelled, and snatched it and hugged it close. “How did you find it?”

Then she kicked herself mentally—it didn’t exactly have a _mouth_. But the Shooting Star responded anyway, by jerking the arrow at its head forward. If it had been a human, that would have been the expression for, “Get going already!”

“Right,” she said, and took a deep breath. Okay. She was going to ride the most legendary broom that had ever existed. No problem.

She took _another_ deep breath. Then one more for the road, and finally, with exquisite care, she lifted her leg over the shaft of the broom and mounted it. Nothing but the most _perfect_ posture for this broom.

“Let’s go!” she yelled, her smile fierce, and the Shooting Star took off like a rocket.

Tiffany had to close her eyes to slits, with the air slamming into her face. “Where are they, where are they,” she muttered, unable even to hear herself as the wind rushed past. She tapped her ear with her wand and declared, “ _Amplificare!_ ”

The wind became almost deafening—or rather, it became very loud without coming close to deafening her. Because now she could hear _much_ more than before. There were voices up the cliff to her left, and she angled her flight path accordingly.

“It’s helping,” Mani said. “The petrification’s moving slower than before. Keep going!”

“I don’t want to die,” Char kept repeating, as a mantra. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I’m not _gonna_ die—”

“I don’t remember it!” Akko cried out, as Tiffany approached the peak. “I don’t remember the spells that speed up a broom! I’m gonna have to call Diana again, she’ll know what to do—”

“No!”

Tiffany burst over the ridge, smiling fiercely, and said, “I’m gonna be the one who saves you!”

Let it never be said that Tiffany Vandergard was afraid of a dramatic entrance.

She stared at the three of them, and they stared back, Char forgetting to struggle for a moment. “‘Wow, Tiffany,’” Tiff prompted, “‘how did you _ever_ find the legendary broom’—no,  nevermind!” She jabbed her finger at Akko. “You need a fast broom, right? Is this one fast enough to you?”

Akko grabbed her jaw and pushed it back into place. “The Shooting Star? Hi again!” she said, waving enthusiastically at the broom. “Where did you find it?”

“Long story! Not sure I understand myself! _Is this fast enough?_ ”

“It should be! We need over a hundred miles an hour for sixty seconds—if any broom can do it, it’s this one!” Akko raised her wand in one hand and her broom in the other. “Mani, get your broom out!” As Mani obeyed, Akko cried out, “ _Torque apparenti!_ ”

This time it wasn’t ropes that burst from her wand, but three chains. They each attached around the back of the Shooting Star, with their other ends going to Mani’s, Akko’s, and Char’s brooms.

The Shooting Star sort of… _gyrated_ as the chains surrounded it. After a moment, Tiffany had an idea of why it was squirming. “It doesn’t like the chains,” she said.

“Probably remembers the pawn shop. Sorry, SS,” Akko said, patting the broom on its shaft, “but we’ve got a life to save.”

The Shooting Star straightened out at these words. “Ready?” Tiffany said, mounting it again.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Char said, as Mani and Akko mounted their brooms. “Let’s go already!”

“One second,” Akko said, and then: “ _Metamorphie vestesse!_ ” Smoke burst from Tiffany’s hat, and then there was a pair of flight goggles attached to it.

“Thanks!” Tiff said, and then looked forward as she secured the goggles. “Now let’s go!”

The Shooting Star reared back, and then burst forward.

The air wasn’t hitting her eyes now, but the rest of her face was taking a beating. “ _Hold on_ ,” she told herself, as her grip slipped down the broom. She glanced behind herself to see the other three behind her holding on for dear life as well, with goggles like her: Akko must have gotten all of their hats.

“ _This is really fast!_ ” Mani yelled, clutching her broom with both arms as well as both legs.

“ _Not fast enough!_ ” Tiff replied, and then realized that the other three didn’t have amplification spells like she did. “ _Amplificare, amplificare, amplificare!_ Not fast enough! We need over a hundred miles per hour!”

“I think the other brooms are creating drag!” Akko yelled. “The Shooting Star can’t keep _up—_ ”

The Star seemed to have heard her. It sped up, until Tiffany could almost feel the cheeks coming off her face. “Fast enough for you?” Tiffany yelled, turning her face out of the wind.

And then she saw something in front of her, and glanced forward again. “Oh, no,” she said.

The cockatrice rose from the forest ahead of them, cawing and shrieking. It was blocking their path. Just a hint of its breath had been enough to incapacitate Char.

“I know what to do,” Mani said. Tiffany looked back and saw an expression of uncharacteristic _anger_ on her face. None of the meekness Tiff had come to associate with her so closely. “I’ll shoot sparks at it.”

Tiffany gaped. “Mani! You don’t know how to shoot sparks!”

“ _That’s right_.” Still clutching the broom with her other three limbs, Mani reached back and grabbed her wand.  “ _Pharus!_ ”

An explosion blasted out of her wand and shot forward, striking the cockatrice in the face. It screamed and sank toward the forest, and the brooms sailed clean over it.

“It’s working,” Char said, and as Tiffany looked back, she saw it: bits of stone were flaking off Char’s midriff and getting lost in the breeze. “You guys are actually doing it. I’m not gonna die, I’m _not!_ ”

They sped toward the horizon. But not toward the school. If anything, they were probably going further away from Luna Nova. “Where’s the school?” Tiffany yelled. “We’re going to miss the opening ceremony!”

“No.”

This was Akko. Her eyes were hard lines. “You three,” she said, “are going to get to Luna Nova, and you’re gonna be fantastic witches. And I’m going to help you.”

Her wand flashed for a moment—seven bright blue-green points of light. Then she hopped to her feet.

“Akko, what are you _doing?_ ” Tiffany exclaimed, as Akko ran forward along the chain toward the Shooting Star, and then—with a grace unparalleled by any Olympian gymnast that Tiffany had ever seen—she _jumped_ over Tiffany and landed on her feet. “ _Oh my goodness_ , what are you _doing?_ ”

“Being the _best_ mentor ever!” Akko held her wand straight up in front of her, holding it in its middle with her left hand. “ _Noctu Orfei!_ ” Her right hand was pulled back, almost as if holding a—“ _Aude… Fraetor!_ ”

Her wand transformed into a bow, inlaid with seven shining pearls, and a giant golden arrow already nocked and ready to fly. “ _Shiny… Arc!_ ” She pulled back the string and fired.

The arrow flew forward, glowing bright green, and exploded into a giant viridescent circle. “The leyline!” Tiffany gasped as they flew into it. Since when could a witch just _create_ a new leyline?

Mani gasped. “It’s _beautiful_.”

Char laughed. Tiffany glanced around and saw that almost all of the stone covering her had flown away.

And then she looked forward at the witch who still stood proudly on the prow of the Shooting Star, as if she’d been doing it her whole life. The witch who had just used a spell Tiffany had never _heard_ of to do magic she’d never believed was _possible_.

She was the greatest witch Tiffany had ever seen.

* * *

About twenty seconds later, they were sprawled on the floor of the Great Hall of Luna Nova.

“Atsuko Kagari,” an angry, stern voice was saying, “are you _ever_ going to show up to an entrance ceremony _before_ the nick of time? And through the _front door?_ ”

“Eheh. Sorry, Professor Finnelan,” Akko said. “But I got everyone here! And no one got hurt and nothing bad happened at all!”

Tiffany felt a hand pulling her up, and then Akko whispering in her ear, “ _Nothing bad happened._ ”

“Right,” Tiffany whispered back. Then her eyes focused, and she noticed a couple of things.

Namely, the teachers in front of her. A bunch of them, staring in various states of shock, disdain, or even amusement. Three caught her attention, but one most of all.

“Yo,” Char said, rubbing her head as she stood, for the first time Tiffany had seen. “Is that teacher a fish?”

Mani pointed at another one: a translucent image of a witch with light purple hair, projected from a floating red disk and chuckling with amusement. “Is that teacher a _hologram?_ ”

Tiffany gasped. “Is that teacher _Shiny Chariot_?”

The teacher in question—a woman with glasses, a bulbous dress, and tied-up red hair—stiffened, but then relaxed and smiled. “Well, no reason to keep waiting now.”

She pulled out her wand and pointed it skyward, and a brilliant light shone out, blinding Tiffany. When her vision came back, the witch was dressed completely differently: a brilliant white hat and dress, with a red cape billowing behind her. Her hair fell loosely, glamorously around her face.  “Welcome,” she called out, spreading her arms wide, “to the world of magic!”

* * *

“ _Ugh_ ,” Mani ughed, as the three of them trudged to their shared dormitory. “I can’t believe we almost got expelled on our first day.”

“I blame Tiff,” Char said, leaning against the wall with one hand even as she walked, so that her palm dragged along the wood and stone. Professor Finnelan had forbidden her from using her brooms as a hammock indoors, but she still seemed determined to support as little of her own body weight with her feet as possible.

However, Professor Finnelan hadn’t been able to do anything about the Shooting Star, which was now floating arrogantly—somehow it made _floating_ look arrogant—at Tiff’s side. As Char tried to reach forward and lean on it, it swerved out of the way, and Char stumbled. She said something that was probably profane under her breath, then continued, “Tiff’s a troublemaker.”

“Ex- _cuse_ you!” Tiff said, rounding on her. “I am a trouble _solver!_ ”

“Eh, I guess.” Char smiled at her. “I take back most of the bad things I said about you.”

“Likewise. Wait, most?”

“Hey!” Mani said, in a scolding kind of voice. “Be nice, you two.”

“Least the magic show was cool.”

“I suppose it was,” Tiff replied.

They approached their door. Tiffany took a deep breath, then took Char aside before she could enter in. “Char,” she said, looking her in the eyes.

“Yeah, Tiff?” Char looked back for a moment before glancing away.

“I did some things today that I’m….” Tiff paused for another steadying breath. “Not proud of. I nearly got you and Mani hurt. And I really would like to be friends. So I wanted to say, right now, I’m—”

Mani pulled the door open. The next thing Tiff knew, there was the squealing sound of party favors, and her face was being assaulted by colorful paper bits. “Hey!” she said, tasting them on her tongue and spitting some of them out.

“Welcome to your new room!” Akko cried out from inside, arms spread wide while confetti rained down on her and everything else within. “You guys are gonna have _so much fun_ , being a first-year is amazing, I wish _I_ could redo my first year, _oh I’m so excited for you!_ ”

She darted behind the three of them and shoved them forward into the room, where the confetti had finished falling. “I’m your officially unofficial R.A. for the year, so just let me know if there’s anything at all you need, okay? Extra blankets, extra chairs, study sessions, library books, autographs from Shiny Chariot—I’ve got, like, a million now that I know her personally, ‘cuz she signs my homework assignments! Anything at all!”

Tiffany smiled, her teeth gritted together, and sucked in a breath. “Could you clean up the confetti?”

“Oh, right! Sorry. _Yera Retoure!_ ”

The confetti flew up again, and Tiffany flinched back toward the bed, as it all collected into a party popper in Akko’s non-wand-holding hand. The Shooting Star shook itself like a dog as it became clean.

“And before I forget, here’s your stuff!” Akko added. She pulled out her bag of holding, inverted it, and shook: a mismatched jumble of suitcases and other luggage spilled out onto the bed, almost covering it. Several items fell to the floor.

“Thanks,” Tiffany said, and sucked a breath in through her teeth. “Now could you get out so we can have some privacy?”

“What? Oh, yeah!” Akko took a few steps back, but didn’t leave. “Right, I’ve gotta meet up with Sucy and Lotte anyway. Which reminds me, I gotta ask her if it’s short for Charlotte like you, Char!”

“Out,” Tiffany repeated.

“Sorry!” Another few steps, and Akko was at the door. “Like I was saying, anything you need, I’m here to help, so don’t hesitate to call! I can give you my phone number if you want—”

“ _Out!_ ”

“Ow!” Akko said, as the Shooting Star took initiative and jabbed her in the front, pushing her out the door. “It’s 0115-896-0073, bye!” And finally she was gone, running down the hallway as the Star chased her, her voice getting quieter as she ran: “Leave me alone! We saved the world together, and this is the thanks I get?”

Tiff sighed, and slumped onto the bottom bunk. It was closest.

“So that teacher at the opening ceremony,” Mani said, clambering up to the top bunk above her, “that’s really Shiny Chariot? The same Chariot from the shows? No one knew where she was for _ten years!_ ”

“Well,” Char said, slumping onto the single bed without even bothering to clean off the luggage from it, “guess she’s here. Unlike whoever that hologram teacher was. I guess she works from home, or something? Sounds like a sweet deal.”

“You _would_ say that, wouldn’t you,” Tiff said, rolling her eyes. She gathered up her suitcases from the pile.

“I sure would, guilty as charged.” Char lifted her hands up. “Also, first thing tomorrow, I’m gonna ask what the deal is with that fish teacher.”

“Char!” Mani said. “You can’t just ask why she’s a fish!”

“Why not?”

“Because… I’m not sure, but it seems rude somehow!”

Tiffany sighed. The teachers were weird, the second years were insane—if Akko was any indication—and her roommates? Her roommates were….

A smile made its way onto her face without her realizing at first. Her roommates were full of surprises. And maybe she was too.

A rapping noise jolted her from her rest, and she glanced over to see the Shooting Star had returned and was tapping its prow against the window. It reminded her of a cat yowling at the door, demanding to be let out.

Tiffany sighed, pushed herself up, and opened the window. The Shooting Star zoomed out into the night sky, and she watched it go, leaning on the sill with her elbows. Even her _broom_ had an attitude now.

No matter what, this year was certainly going to be _something_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess I should explain where this all came from. Or at the very least, I want to.
> 
> Little Witch Academia is a show that hits pretty much all of my "I must write fanfic for this" buttons. It's good, with lovable characters and an optimistic attitude, yet not flawless. And it's got a huge unexplored world and lore that the show doesn't really get into (we only meet _two_ of the Nine Olde Witches?), not to mention a huge amount of future to think about.
> 
> And it's this exact future that I wanted to write about, because at the end of Little Witch Academia, the world undergoes a _ginormous_ change, and I really wanted to explore that! Akko's unlocked the Grand Triskelion and brought magic back to the world!
> 
> What better way to explore that than with the help of three girls who don't like that magic's back at all?
> 
> I hope you all like what I've done so far, because I've got more where this came from!


	5. How to Meet your Heroes (1)

The dragon swooped down low over the students assembled in the Great Hall, and they screamed with fear.

But Chariot stood proud upon the stage. “Noctu Orfei! Audin Fraetor!” Her wand transformed into a magnificent bow, and she pulled the drawstring back. “ _Shiny… Arc!_ ”

The arrow shot forward, piercing the dragon. It swelled comically, then exploded into a shower of lights, and the witches below cheered. All of them, even the ones who’d looked unimpressed at the start.

“Never forget,” she declared, “to believe in yourself! _That_ is your magic!” She wove her wand again and disappeared into a vortex of light, which swirled away to nothing.

“Well, well, that was truly splendid!” Headmistress Holbrooke called out. “Let’s all give a big round of applause to one of our most _famous_ and _beloved_ teachers, Professor Chariot, for making this a very special convocation ceremony!”

The sound of clapping hands crashed like thunder.

Behind the curtain, Chariot sucked in huge breaths through gritted teeth. Her head was light, her eyes wide and strained, and she sagged to the ground against a nearby wall. _All those people—missing their magic—_

 _Shut up_ , she told herself. It wasn’t real, not this time.

But her blood pounded all the same, mingling with the cheers, the screams. She saw their smiling faces, saw little lights coming out of their chests—lights being _stolen_ from their hearts, burning up—

“Pulse: elevated.”

Her head whipped up to see the floating red disk, whirring at her eye level. Out of it came a voice that was human, though still clipped. Sharp enough to cut through all the pounding. “Breathing: fast, irregular, increasingly shallow. Pupils: dilated. Diagnosis: panic attack.”

A hologram burst out from the top of the disk: Croix, with her usual red cloak bundled around her. She was reading some sort of translucent display, but after a moment she waved it away. “These droids can be awfully redundant sometimes.”

Chariot tried to force a laugh, but it came out as more an exhalation. “Croix.” These rapid breaths were still coming.

“You did _great_.” Croix flashed her a smile. Light flickered across her face, suggesting she was near a fire. “It’s okay. No one got hurt, no Dream Fuel Spirits stole anyone’s magic. Not even actually using the Shiny Rod, just stage trickery. You did _great_. Deep breaths.”

Another flying roomba hovered close and beeped in a reassuring way. Chariot clutched it to her torso. It was comfortingly hot to the touch, and Chariot felt her breathing slowing down, if only a little. This felt _real_.

“Is that helping?” Croix asked, kneeling and leaning forward, her disk hovering closer. “It ought to be helping.”

“Yes. Yes it is.” Chariot took a shuddering breath, willing her heart to slow. “I can’t _believe_ I let Headmistress Holbrooke talk me into this. I swore I’d never do another show, not after….”

“The moon?” Croix stood up and walked away, though her disk remained stationary, as though she were on a treadmill. She pushed open the flap of, presumably, a tent, and looked out at what had to be the sky—not that Chariot could see that through the hologram. “You know,” Croix said slowly, “I think I like it better this way.”

“Stop.” Blood pounding, hard enough she could hear it. Or was that the applause?

“I mean, the United States government is still furious with you for knocking over the flag, but that’s not exactly _illegal_. I think.” Croix shrugged. “Then again, what do I know about law? No one’s pressed charges against _me_ yet.”

“Stop!” Chariot said, biting on her tongue.

Croix’s demeanor instantly changed from confidence to fear. “I’m sorry! I thought we were bantering! I…. Your show was great. Sorry to bring that up.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Chariot shook her head and forced herself to stand up. Still clutching the second disk to herself, she walked toward the back of the backstage and pulled open the drapes.

The moon greeted her, huge in the sky. The moon she’d put a scar in ten years ago. How hilarious: all those years, she’d dreamed of making her mark….

And she _had_ made it, she reminded herself, clutching the disk tight. Akko and Diana were in the audience, and they’d cheered loudest of all. The school had more students now than in the previous thousand years. Magic was _back_.

“It _was_ a good show,” she murmured to herself. Next to her, Alcor flew in and landed on the sill, and she patted him on the head. He felt real too.

Croix’s disk floated over beside her. Croix smiled, looking her in the eye.

“Where are you?” Chariot asked, smiling back, fighting down the panic and winning for once. “Last time we talked you were in Egypt, and then I got caught up preparing for the convocation… I wish I could have made more time these past few days to chat.”

“It wouldn’t have been that interesting anyway. I haven’t made much progress, I’m afraid.” Croix’s sigh quavered as she shivered. “And the Arabian desert, since you asked. These nights can get _cold_.”

Chariot hugged the warming disk a little closer to her body, and laughed a little. “Physician, heal thyself.”

“Good idea, but I want to conserve my droids’ power out here as much as possible.” Croix’s hologram flickered. She walked back toward the fire in her tent and sat down, wrapping her cloak tighter around herself. “Even after Yggdrasil came back, there’s some places where magic’s still thin on the ground, and I’ve walked into a dead zone here.”

“You know you don’t have to do this for me, right?” Chariot said, staring out the window. “I love that you are, but… you know I don’t resent you for any of it anymore. Not the Shiny Rod, not the Dream Fuel Spirit, not Wagandea. That’s all in the past.”

“Thanks, but that’s nonsense.” Croix sat cross-legged, her chin resting on her hands as her elbows pressed on her legs. She stared into the fire in front of her. “The past doesn’t stay in the past. It just keeps going until it becomes the present. You haven’t forgiven yourself either, have you?”

Chariot had no reply there. She just kept staring out the window, out at the cross-scarred moon.

“Yeah. So I’m going to find a cure for your curse.”

“ _While_ traveling the world. _And_ continuing to be a professor at the most prestigious magical academy in Europe.” Chariot shook her head, a small smile on her lips.

“ _And_ making time to chat, don’t forget.” Croix looked up and winked.

“When do you _sleep_?”

“I don’t need much.”

“You mean you don’t _get_ much.” Chariot rolled her eyes and turned to Croix. “It’s after midnight where you are, isn’t it, Croix? Get some rest.”

She leaned in for a hug, but the hologram fizzled as Chariot’s arms went right through it. After a moment to realize, she pulled away, and looked down. “Sorry,” she said. “I… wish you were here.”

“I’ll always be there for you.” Croix smiled, and tapped the ground at her side. “And _here_ for you, too. Isn’t modern magic great?”

“Only as great as the witch using it.” Chariot put on another smile. “Good night, Croix.”

“Good night, Chariot.” Croix reached to her side and grabbed a cup of ramen; then the hologram fizzled out. The disk which had been projecting it floated away.

Chariot sighed and looked out at the moon again, still holding Croix’s other disk in a hug. The moon _was_ beautiful. It was the same moon Croix could see, thousands of miles away.

For a moment, something else in the sky caught her gaze, and she frowned. Something about the arrangement of the stars….

Then she yawned, and turned away from the window. Alcor hopped onto her shoulder as she walked. She was _tired_ , and classes were tomorrow and she hadn’t even eaten yet. Time for an early dinner and an early bed.

* * *

“Char, get up!”

“Nnnnn. Too early….”

“It is eight o’clock in the morning, which is a perfectly reasonable time for any young witch to wake. So get up!”

“Go away. Let me die here.”

“Not funny!”

Mani and Tiff each grabbed one of Char’s arms and heaved her up—from the _bottom_ bunk. She had demanded Tiff switch with her the previous night, with some explanation about gravitational potential energy, and from there there had been a general reshuffling. Tiff had gotten the top bunk, and Mani had the large bed.

Char moaned, then glanced at the sun streaming through the window and hissed like a vampire. “Put me back.”

“Magical Astronomy is in an _hour_ , and we need to eat first. So no, we will not put you back.” Tiff shook herself and released Char, who at least wasn’t trying to fall back into bed. Apparently, trying to snooze wasn’t worth fighting Mani and Tiff.

“Fine.” Char yawned widely. “Getting changed.”

“We’ll turn around,” Tiff said. Mani dutifully did so.

“Meh. Don’t care.”

“We’re doing it anyway.”

To her credit, Char didn’t take much longer than five minutes to get dressed. However, that was still five minutes of Tiffany standing awkwardly with her back to the bunkbed, which at least gave her time to look around half of the room.

She squinted. The room was obviously constructed in a classical style, to match the rest of the school. The Shooting Star rested upright against the wall in one corner, having returned from its flight sometime last night. The shelf by the window was filled with the books Mani and Tiff had unpacked—Char had done no such thing. Overall, it all looked as she’d expected… and yet.

She wasn’t sure how to articulate it, but the room lacked the sense of _age_ the rest of the building had. Somehow the walls seemed too clean, the windows too clear—not the cleanness of having been cleaned, but of never having been dirty. It was like a new car.

“If I didn’t know better,” she said, walking out of the room with Mani and Char in tow, “I’d say this whole _wing_ was built within the last year.”

“Good eye! Construction finished a week ago.”

The voice was disembodied but familiar. Tiff looked around, but no other witches were in the corridor around them. “They really had to rush the new dorms,” the voice continued, “what with the influx of first-years this time. Up here! Hi!”

Tiff glanced up and saw a mouse. A mouse with bangs and a half-do. “ _Gah!_ ” Tiff yelled.

The mouse grinned with buck-teeth, then hopped down. One burst of smoke later, and Akko was standing before them, hands on her hips. “Don’t do that!” Tiff blurted.

“And good morning to you too!” Akko rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same. “I was wondering, do you need help finding the Great Hall for breakfast?”

“Why would we?” Mani asked.

Akko shrugged. “The last couple groups needed it. Come on, follow me!”

 _Or maybe,_ Tiffany thought but did not say, _they just didn’t have the heart to say no._ Yet she was walking behind Akko anyway, as she led them with the enthusiasm of a parade conductor, so apparently Tiff didn’t have the heart either.

“Is the Shooting Star around?” Akko asked, turning a corner. “I was wondering if I’d have a chance to say hi. Not like it would say hi back, but we’ve got a history, y’know?”

“It’s resting in our room. Maybe even brooms need sleep.” Tiff frowned. “ _You_ were chosen by the Shooting Star, weren’t you?”

“More or less, but it didn’t stick around for the afterparty. Which is a shame, since it was a _really_ nice afterparty. We had cake! I guess it wasn’t hungry.” Akko chuckled, although Tiff felt like her little joke didn’t even merit a groan. “In any case, I have _no_ idea why it’s so interested in _you_. Any ideas?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing!” Tiff sighed. “Never mind.”

“Well, I know someone who _might_ know, and she’s basically the smartest and greatest witch of all time… but you’ve got classes first.”

They came to a spiral staircase and descended it. From there, it was only a minute’s brisk walk before they were at the great hall, yet Char was already grumbling behind them about the exertion. Tiff rolled her eyes and strode forward.

A blonde-green-haired witch glanced up as they approached the dining area. “Is that the last of them, Akko?”

“Think so, yeah. Morning, Diana!”

Tiff’s jaw dropped. The image flashed into her head once more: two witches, standing atop the Shooting Star, firing a giant bow at a magical missile. Akko had been one and this—this was the other. “Diana Cavendish,” she mumbled.

And then, as Akko leaned in and kissed Diana on the cheek, she wished she hadn’t dropped her jaw all the way to start out. She needed some way to escalate.

“You two—” she stuttered.

“Akko,” Diana said, blushing, “not in front of people, please.”

“Aww, but that’s the best part of dating!” Akko pouted, and then turned to the trio. “May I introduce my lovely girlfriend, Diana.”

Tiffany made up her mind and stuck out her hand. “It’s an _honor_ to meet you, Miss Cavendish. They say you’re the best student in the history of Luna Nova!” Then she squinted: Diana seemed to have mouthed the last few words as Tiff said them. “I suppose you must get that a lot,” Tiff added, grinning nervously.

“Well, it’s true, in fairness.” Diana’s voice was even, without a hint of arrogance. She was stating a fact: no more, no less. Then she smiled, and took Tiff’s outstretched hand. “Well, it _was_ true, once upon a time. It’s very nice to meet you, miss….”

“Tiffany Vandergard!”

“Ah, from the Vandergard family in New York.”

“New _Amsterdam_ ,” Tiff muttered before she could stop herself. Char sniggered behind her, and she felt heat rush to her face.

Diana’s polite expression didn’t falter. “Well, I’m sure you know best. I won’t keep you from your meal. Enjoy your first day of classes.” She took Akko’s hand in hers, with the unconscious ease of someone slipping their hand into their pocket, and walked away.

Which meant Tiff didn’t have to maintain her composure. “ _Cavendish!_ ” she hissed, whipping around to face Char and Mani. “We just met Diana _Cavendish!_ I mean, the family was on the wane in recent years, _goodness_ knows, but she’s brought the name back in a _big_ way!” She heaved a deep breath. “Oh, I think I need to sit down.”

“Cheers to that,” Char said, flopping into a chair at the nearest unoccupied table.

Mani sighed. “I’ll get you two some rolls.”

Tiff just breathed deeply. Diana was something like a household name in the magical community: not only a spellcasting prodigy, but an incredible flier. She’d certainly proved her mettle in the worldwide broadcast on the day of Starfall, deftly maneuvering her broom through a hailstorm of missile-fire. It looked like trying to dodge _rain_ , and she’d come out dry.

Tiff forced another breath, and pulled out her schedule. First up on the list was Magical Astronomy, with… Professor Chariot, of all people. As in, _that_ Chariot. This was going to be one star-studded morning.

“Aw, man,” Char said, glancing at her schedule in turn. “I don’t have any classes with the fish.”

“The fish?”

“Yeah, I don’t know her name.”

“Then how do you know you don’t have any classes with her?”

Char considered this, tapping a finger to her lip. “Good point. Oh, hey,” she added, leaning toward Tiff. “We’ve got most of the same classes. Magic Astronomy, Numerology… oh, this one’s weird.” She tapped the block on her schedule that came after midday break. “What’s Modern Magic, and who’s Professor Croix?”

“I haven’t the faintest.” _Croix_ … the name pinged something in Tiff’s brain, some small cluster of neurons, but nothing came of it.

Mani returned, carrying breakfast for them. Tiff couldn’t help but notice that while Mani had piled her own plate high, she and Char only had a roll and a slice of butter each. “A little unbalanced, don’t you think?” Char asked, eyeing her roll.

“I don’t know what either of you like.” Mani set to cutting up her bacon. “If you’re hungry, go get something yourselves.”

“Fair.” Char shrugged, and went at her roll with gusto. “Rrrrrr,” she said through a mouthful of bread, groaning like a zombie. “ _Grains_.”

Tiff rolled her eyes. Then she glanced up: the eye-roll had caught a flicker of movement near the ceiling.

“Maps here! Getcha maps here! _Brawk!_ ”

Mani squeaked and dove under the table at the sudden noise.

It was Akko, of course. She’d metamorphosed into some sort of large bird that Tiff didn’t immediately recognize—possibly an oversized toucan, but most toucans didn’t have bangs—and was flying around the room, dropping leaflets on the students below. Tiffany watched one flutter down to her table: on it was a detailed floorplan of Luna Nova, enchanted with a glowing red dot in the great hall. Tiff frowned, then grabbed the map and waved it around her head a little: the dot jittered accordingly.

Had Akko come up with this enchantment?

“ _Atsuko Kagari!_ ”

Tiff’s head spun around at the harsh sound, which resonated like a gunshot. The teacher it came from seemed to have been _born_ at middle-age, she wore it so well. “Need I remind you that there is _no flying_ allowed indoors? And that includes under your own power, in case you’re thinking of being clever!”

“Sorry, Professor Finnelan! _Brawk!_ ” Akko the parrot flapped down toward a table—the one Diana was sitting at, incidentally—and perched upon it. A puff of smoke erupted, and Akko the human was crouched on the table in a similar pose, grinning. Diana rolled her eyes.

“I thought you were making an effort to be more _responsible!_ ” Professor Finnelan grimaced suddenly—distinct from her earlier frown in its intensity—and clutched her stomach. “Ugh, my ulcer is acting up again.”

“Sorry, Professor,” Akko said, a lot more contritely. “Do you need anything?”

“I need you to get off that table!”

Tiffany turned away and attacked her breakfast. _This_ was the witch she’d thought was the greatest she’d ever seen? A girl who couldn’t go five minutes without getting in trouble at school, and saw nothing wrong with waiting outside a bedroom shapeshifted into a mouse.

A witch like that couldn’t _possibly_ be the greatest ever, could she?

* * *

“Welcome, to the—of—nomy!”

The redheaded teacher winced. She detached a microphone from the neckline of her dress, turned a little dial on it, and spoke into it once more. “ _WELCOME, TO THE WORLD OF ASTRONOMY!_ ”

Tiff and the rest of the class covered their ears at the shriek of feedback. Grimacing, the teacher took the microphone and tossed it on the floor to her side, producing another bunch of dull thuds from unseen speakers. “Well, I’ll have to talk to Professor Croix about this microphone experiment of hers, but in the meantime, I’ll just project my voice like normal. Welcome, to the world of….” She sighed. “Oh, you know.”

Tiff squinted. The teacher had introduced herself as Chariot, and her hair was the right color, but… apart from that, she couldn’t imagine anyone being more opposite. _Shiny_ Chariot was as eye-grabbing as a fireworks show, whereas _Professor_ Chariot was as eye-grabbing as a slow-motion car crash.

 _Maybe there’s a potion she drinks, like Dr. Jekyll,_ Tiff mused. _Maybe she actually transforms for the show. Maybe she has a twin._

“So!” Professor Chariot said, smiling nervously. This seemed to be the only way she could do anything. “Obviously, before you can do _Magical_ Astronomy, you’ll have to master the basics of plain old, boring, Astronomy. Except it’s not boring!” she added, quickly, as if someone was about to give up on the class right then. “It’s very interesting, or at least I’ll do my best to make it as interesting as it should be. As it is!”

Char was wincing beside her. It was a long, slow wince, and it seemed Char was willing to draw it out all class long. “Self esteem issues, much?” she whispered.

Tiff grumbled to herself as Professor Chariot waved a wand, and sheets of paper flew out from her desk among the students. As they landed on the desks, Tiffany saw they were worksheets. “So let’s start by, um… filling these out! Just as well as you can, so I can get a sense of the class’s aptitude.” Chariot was tapping her fingers together. “You have fifteen minutes, feel free to start.”

Planets, and a star chart for naming constellations. The planets were a cakewalk, and although she wasn’t a hundred percent certain about the constellations, she was pretty sure about half of them and reasonably confident in her guesses for the others. She sighed and flipped her paper over after only about five minutes, then reclined in her chair.

Nothing quite like a pop quiz at the beginning of class to make astronomy “interesting”.

After ten tedious minutes, a bell rang. “All right, time’s up,” Chariot said, and waved her wand. The worksheets flew her way. “And, just remember, this isn’t being graded,” she said, glancing at them as they approached. “It’s just my way of gauging where the class is with respect to knowing their cosmology.”

“Wasn’t done,” Char muttered, slouching over her desk.

The papers shuffled, floating, in front of Chariot. Her frown grew frownier with each one. “Mmm. Some standouts, but….” She shook her head. “Could you all do something else for me? Close your eyes.”

Tiffany closed hers dutifully, but squinted even so under her eyelids.

“Raise your hand if you’re from a non-magical family, or if you didn’t have magic until very recently.”

Around Tiffany, she heard the sound of many hands being raised. It sounded like more than half the class.

“That makes sense. Drop your hands, and open your eyes.” Tiff opened hers to see Chariot smiling. “Well, it’s quite all right if you don’t know the constellations already. This is a school, after all!”

She chuckled, and some of the students chuckled back, but without humor in their voices. Tiffany glanced around, and saw… well, it was like what she’d seen in her dorm, now that she was paying attention. The students all _looked_ proper enough on the surface, but there were signs. Subtle slips in presentation, in how they wore their robes or carried themselves. There were a _lot_ of newbies here.

“Not to mention, some of my greatest students started from the bottom,” Chariot continued. She tapped a piece of chalk with her wand, and it flew into the air and started sketching out a rough Copernican system. “So we’ll begin by going over the planets!”

Tiff suppressed a groan. If there was any way to make non-magical astronomy fun and interesting, then she was sure that spending a week recapping “Baby’s First Solar System” was _not_ it.

It was going to be a long forty-five minutes.

 

* * *

Tiff snorted. “I still think it’s her twin, or something. No way was _that_ Shiny Chariot.”

She trudged along the hallway. Mani and Char were in tow behind her. “I thought she was nice,” Mani said, “and she’s definitely a pretty good teacher—”

“In what universe?” Tiff rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe there’s people in that class who don’t know the _planets_. And she’s _accommodating_ them!”

Char cleared her throat with a meaningful look. Tiffany stared at her. “Oh, not you too.”

“I forgot whether Pluto is one or not, okay? Cut me some slack.”

“Pluto is _absolutely_ a planet,” Tiff said.

Mani raised her eyebrow. “Are you sure? I’m pretty sure it isn’t anymore….”

“Maybe to _non-witches_ it isn’t, but in magical circles Pluto is still the ninth planet!”

“There are actually multiple schools of thought about the subject,” a fourth voice cut in. Tiffany glanced to her right, saw Diana walking next to them, and tried not to vibrate with excitement. Diana didn’t glance at them, just kept power-walking forward with the gait of someone with somewhere to be.

Tiffany had somewhere to be, too: wherever Diana was going. She hurried forward as Diana continued, “Since the non-magical International Astronomical Union decided it wasn’t a planet, and discovered multiple objects in the solar system with similar mass, a number of different astrological factions have emerged.”

She smiled as Tiff stared, looking at her for the first time. “Sorry to butt in, but your discussion was interesting. Might I recommend ‘The Case for Eris’ as a treatise about the ongoing debate on the matter? I know the library has a copy.”

“Thank you,” Tiff breathed.

“Not a problem. Enjoy your day.” With another flashed smile, she turned down a corner. Tiff stopped at the implied dismissal and watched her leave. The girl was the definition of grace, the personification of poise, the….

“Hey, Tiff. You’re kinda standing in the middle of the hallway.”

Tiffany blinked, and glanced behind her to see the myriad students she was blocking from walking through the intersection. She blushed and hurried forward.

* * *

“These are the lunar runes which have been used by witches since ancient times.” Professor Finnelan waved her wand, and row upon row of runes appeared on the blackboard behind her. “Can anyone here _read_ the segmental script?”

Tiffany squinted. She was _sure_ she’d seen this somewhere before, but… maybe if she had some time….

“Anyone? No?” Professor Finnelan sighed, and recited, “‘Bless the one who lets this stone remain untouched. Woe betide the one who moves it.’ It’s the inscription on the tomb of Scarlette, the Fourth Olde Witch.” Finnelan frowned. “I suppose we can’t have a Diana every year.”

“Of _course_ Diana got it,” Tiff whispered, staring.

“Of _course_ ,” Char repeated with a yawn. “Little miss perfect.”

“She’s taller than you.”

“Big miss perfect.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being perfect. In fact, by definition—”

“ _Miss Vandergard and Miss Jones!_ ” Finnelan’s voice was startling, like being interrupted by a fire alarm. “Feel free to continue your discussion after class, but _here_ , we _learn_.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Tiff declared, and with a sharp nod she got back to her notes. This was exactly right. This was exactly what a professor should be. No guff, no chatter, just _leadership_.

* * *

“I like Chariot better.”

“What?” Tiff dropped her fork just as she was about to start eating, and glared at Char, who was leaning in her chair with her legs on the table. “She’s only better at stuttering! Professor Finnelan has all the competency Chariot lacks.”

“And she’s boring,” Char said, yawning halfway through.

“She’s _direct!_ The subject itself is interesting! And get your feet off the table!”

“Chariot tries, though.”

“Tries and _fails_.” Tiff turned to face Mani. “Back me up on this, okay? Chariot’s a decent entertainer, I’ll grant her that, but who decided she ought to be a teacher?”

“I… think they both have their strong points?” Tiff hadn’t noticed before, but it was obvious now: Mani was squirming in her chair. “I wouldn’t say one is… _better_ than the other, but….”

“All right, Mani?” Char leaned forward. “This isn’t _that_ painful an argument, right?”

“No, it’s… I have to….” She grimaced. “How do I put this… let off some pressure?”

“‘Let off some pressure’?” Char snorted. “You don’t need a euphemism. It’s okay. Everyone pees.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Everyone also poops. Just… go to the bathroom.”

“But, I….” Mani sucked in a breath. “Okay, fine.”

She stood up, pushed her chair in, and hurriedly walked off: the kind of walk used by every child at the pool who’d just been yelled at not to run by a lifeguard.

“In _any_ case,” Tiffany said, picking her fork back up, “I can say with confidence that Chariot is the worse teacher of the two. Possibly the worst teacher at the school, and if this is what we can expect from her, then I hope to have as little to do with Professor Chariot as possible.”

“Hi, Tiff! Come with me, we’re gonna see Professor Chariot!”

Tiffany looked up and saw Akko standing over her. “Gah!” she said, bolting to her feet. On the upside, Akko wasn’t a crocodile or a monkey or anything this time, but that didn’t excuse the definite downside of her being in Tiff’s personal bubble. “Don’t you have to go show some newbies how to tie their shoes, or something?” Tiff asked, backing away toward the table.

“Oh, tutoring? Diana’s actually helping a couple of students out. They seemed really excited to talk to her!” She smiled, took Tiff’s hand. “But I’ve gotta get you to Professor Chariot, pronto!”

“What?”

“And bring your new broom!”

“ _What?_ ”

Tiff was helpless as Akko dragged her out of the dining hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in many ways, this "episode" exists just to house the scene at the start of this chapter, the one with Chariot and Croix. Seriously, it was such a fun scene to write (and, hopefully, such a good scene) that I needed somewhere to put it. Hence, a chapter or two to focus on these two giants of Luna Nova Academy.


	6. How to Meet your Heroes (2)

“Professor Chariot! We need to talk to you!”

Akko kept hammering away at the office door, to the point that Tiff wasn’t sure whether she meant to knock on it or break it down. Tiff, for her part, hung back a few steps—maybe passers-by wouldn’t think they were together—and held the Shooting Star in one hand. It had twitched a few times as they ascended the steps to Chariot’s room in the tower, but hadn’t moved much more than that.

Finally, Chariot’s voice called from inside, “Come in, Akko!”

Akko opened the door to reveal a vastly disorganized study. Books were scattered everywhere, the rug was clearly discolored, and a ratty old bird snoozed in one corner. If Tiff had ever let her room get this messy, her parents would have grounded her for a week.

Professor Chariot seemed to be on the tail end of a conversation with—and here, Tiffany had to blink a few times to be sure her eyes were working—a tall, translucent witch chugging from a heavy duty thermos, standing atop a red disk. Chariot glanced toward Akko and Tiffany, flashed them a smile, then turned back to her previous guest. “Sorry about this, Croix,” she said, “but it looks like duty calls. Another time?”

The witch named Croix gulped and nodded. “Another time. See you later, Chariot…. Akko.” She nodded in Akko’s direction, looking more than a little uncomfortable. Then, without fanfare, she disappeared into thin air. The disk scooted under Chariot’s desk and out of sight.

“Oh. Hi, Professor Chariot!” Akko said, all smiles again, as Tiff stared. Not even a puff of smoke—just gone, like she hadn’t been there in the first place. Was this what Mani and Char had called a ‘hologram’? “What were you two talking about?”

“Just chatting over lunch,” Chariot said. Indeed, there was a plate with silverware on her desk, and a half-finished roast chicken thigh upon the plate. “What brings you here on your first day back? And I believe I recognize you from earlier today,” she added, smiling at Tiffany. “You did quite well on the astronomy quiz.”

“I’m here to introduce her!” Akko jumped to the side and waved her hands at Tiff. “This is Tiff Vandergard! She’s a new witch here from New York—”

“— _New Amsterdam_ —”

“—no one calls it that—and she’s got a new broom I figured you might wanna see! Well, okay, not a _new_ broom exactly, but….”

Chariot’s eyes widened. “Is that… the Shooting Star?”

Tiff sighed and walked forward, holding the broom in both hands. Tenderly, as if holding the Mona Lisa—except that that wasn't quite right: Tiff knew she would eat pizza off the Mona Lisa before allowing the Shooting Star to be damaged. Chariot scrutinized it, holding her hands close to its shaft but not daring to touch. “How did you find it?” she asked, looking up at last.

Akko grimaced brightly. “Well, we _kinda_ took a detour into the forest yesterday, had some misadventures, found a magical artifact. You know the drill... actually,” she said, glancing over and seeing Tiff’s withering stare, “I should let Tiff tell it.”

“Thank you.” Tiff scratched her neck. “I suppose I’m not certain. I was being attacked by mandrakes in the forest, and I’d lost my wand, and I was trying to fight them off, and… it came and saved me. And it’s still here, which I understand is unusual?”

“Quite unusual… at least, based on our admittedly small sample size.” Chariot frowned at the broom, then looked up at Akko. “So, Akko, why did you want me to see it?”

“Um… because you’re the expert in ancient magical destiny artifacts?”

Chariot winced. “Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry, that’s not….” She sighed. “Akko, I knew so much about the Shiny Rod—the Claiomh Solais, if you’re curious,” she added, glancing at Tiff, “because it was _mine_. I’m not a generalist.”

Akko’s face fell. It put Tiff in mind of a deflating moonbounce.

“Not that I can’t look it up,” Chariot added hurriedly, “and I will, the next time I can find the time! But… I’m sorry, Akko. I might not be as much help here as you hoped.”

“Oh, uh… that’s okay!” Akko perked up almost immediately. “Thanks anyway, Professor! Let us know if you find out anything!”

“I’ll be sure to.” Chariot stood and offered her hand to Tiff. “It’s a pleasure to meet more formally.”

Tiffany took Chariot’s hand and shook it: at least her grip was firm. “Likewise,” she said, regardless of her actual feelings.

Akko clutched her hands together as soon as they’d left the room. “Isn’t she _amazing?_ ”

Then a bell rang. Tiffany squinted. “Did you just waste my entire lunch break?”

* * *

Five minutes later, Chariot heard a telltale hammering on her door again. “Akko,” she called out without looking around, “you’re going to be late for class!”

“It’s important!”

Chariot sighed and swiveled in her chair. “Come in.”

Akko burst through the door and shouted, “ _I used a Word!_ ”

Chariot frowned.

“I mean—” Akko took a deep breath and continued, “I mean, like, a _Word_. Capital W. Just like last year. _Noctu orfei_ and the rest.”

“Oh. _Oh!_ ” Chariot put her hand over her mouth. “You _did_ appear from a glowing green portal, which I suppose I should have thought about if I wasn’t….”

“Worrying about your performance?” Akko smiled disarmingly.

“Anyway.” Chariot took a breath before continuing. “The Shiny Rod hasn’t reappeared, has it?” When Akko shook her head, Chariot frowned. “Then… when I said the Word in my performance last night, that was just stage trickery. But you used it for real. How?”

“I just….” Akko’s face was screwed up in concentration. “It felt _right_ , you know? Like the other times when the Words came to me, it felt _right_ to use it right there and then.” She groaned. “It’s so confusing. Not that I’m complaining!—but _why_ can I use the words again?”

The bell rang for the second time. Akko froze. “Oh. Whoops.”

“You’d better get going,” Chariot said needlessly, as Akko turned tail and bolted out the door. Chariot chuckled to herself, but only briefly.

_The Words didn’t disappear with the Claimh Solais._

Chariot frowned and leaned her elbows on her desk.

_They were here in the first place for a purpose—to unlock the Grand Triskelion. And if they can still be used, even without the Shiny Rod… maybe their purpose isn’t yet finished._

She groaned. This was going to require a _lot_ of research.

* * *

Tiff’s stomach was growling. To her left, Mani squirmed. “Nervous in the bathroom, huh?” Char said.

“Shut up,” Mani muttered.

The bell for the start of class had rung, and no teacher was present, unless the short dark-haired girl leaning against the wall was the teacher—but she looked young enough to be a student. However, before long, a red disk glided out from under the teacher’s desk. Then another eight. Then another sixteen, forming a five-by-five grid.

“Welcome to the _new_ world of magic.”

The voice was disembodied and commanding. The lights in the room dimmed, but new lights bloomed from the disks on the floor: a wide pillar, which resolved into a fifteen foot tall female shape. People gasped.

Far from the usual teacher’s robes and hat, she wore a billowing red cloak and had unruly, light-purple hair without anything covering it. Add to that her tanned skin, and Tiffany couldn’t help but wonder whether this was a teacher, or some sort of post-apocalyptic cosplayer—until she felt a start of recognition. This was the witch Chariot had been speaking to.

“My name is Professor Croix,” she said, “and it’s a pleasure to be here… or that’s what I _would_ say.”

The image flickered and disappeared.

“If I _were_ here.”

Tiffany whirled around in her seat, seeing the professor up at the back of the class, her image projected by another disk. Little murmurs and gasps sprung up from the class as Croix, with one hand on her hip, floated down toward the front of the room again. “As you can see from this hologram, though, I’m not here at all. In fact, I’m in the Arabian peninsula, in the middle of a vast desert. Would you like to see it?”

There were no murmurs this time. Croix’s disks arrayed themselves around the walls of the classroom and glowed—and the standard Luna Nova lecture hall, flat at the front and with steadily rising seats in the rear, was replaced by an Arabian dune. The floor under Croix’s desk turned to sand, and the walls disappeared, replaced by vast cloudless sky, bleached blue and seemingly infinite, holding nothing but the punishing afternoon sun. Only the exit door remained: incongruous as it was, it only highlighted the majesty of the situation.

No, there were no murmurs. Only slack-jawed gasps, and applause. Tiffany joined in both.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” said Professor Croix. “Please, take a look around. I spent hours scouting out a location with a good view.” No longer confined to her disk, she strode across the simulated desert and leaned casually on the desk, as if she were there. And it was very hard to discern that she wasn’t, Tiffany saw: she was very slightly translucent, as were the sand and the sky. If she squinted, she could barely make out the walls of the classroom.

But if she _didn’t_ squint… Tiff reached down, scooping up some virtual sand, and it actually rose in her hand. She splayed her fingers, letting it trickle out, and fancied she could _feel_ it running against her skin. She found herself _sweating_ under the oppressive heat of the sun, and in fact had to cover her eyes as she looked behind herself to see it, lest it should blind her.

And Tiffany wasn’t the only one looking. All around her, the other students were playing with the sand, and shielding their eyes from the sun, and staring at the scenery. The only one who seemed unimpressed was the short, dark-haired girl at the front, who was still leaning against the wall despite its apparent disappearance. As Tiffany watched, she rolled her eyes and fidgeted with the large red bow in her hair.

“So, first question for the class.” Professor Croix was smiling, like she’d told the world’s best joke and was waiting for them to get it. “How did I do all this?”

The class’s attention was on her once more, but no one raised any hands for several seconds. “Any takers?” Croix prompted.

A tan-skinned witch behind Tiffany stood up and called out, “Magic!” The class laughed, but she didn’t flinch or wince or make any show of embarrassment.

Croix laughed too, and a bit haughtily. “Miss… Lopez, correct? If we answered every question at Luna Nova with ‘magic’, even if the answer was technically correct, I doubt we’d learn very much. Especially since, in _this_ case, it isn’t the correct answer. Not entirely, anyway….” She trailed off enticingly, daring someone to continue.

Char flopped her hand up, then let it fall against the desk again. “You’re using technology too, isn’t that it?”

“Now that’s more like it, Miss Jones.” Croix smiled. “Of course, technology alone can’t produce this kind of hologram. Magic alone might be able to, for a split second, but an illusion of this scale, for this duration, requires….” She grimaced, her cool air of charisma flickering for a moment. “ _Unconscionable_ amounts of power.”

That was a weird word choice, Tiffany thought.

“And yet here you are, in the desert of Arabia. How?” Croix grinned, and there was that charisma again, the kind that made her the most eye-catching thing in this room of wonders. “Because we have magic, to provide the _ability_ that technology needs—and we have technology, to provide the _efficiency_ that magic lacks. _That_ , my students, is the power of—!”

A pointer materialized in her hand, and she rapped it against the blackboard behind her, which materialized just in time to be struck. Words shimmered into existence on the board as she said them: “Modern magic!”

Tiffany couldn’t help herself. She applauded again, bolting to her feet and clapping as loudly as she could. It took a few seconds to notice that no one else was clapping as hard as she was. Once she noticed, her hands slowed to a halt, and she slowly sat back down.

“First of all comes our syllabus. If you could just pass that out, please, Constanze? She'll be your very capable TA for the year.” At this cue, the short witch with the bow stepped up and grabbed a stack of papers from the desk, then walked up the dune—the stairs, almost concealed by the dune, Tiff reminded herself—and thrust a sheaf at each row.

“First on our agenda,” Croix continued, as Tiff received her syllabus, “will be a crash course in the basics of electricity and circuits: most of you are probably familiar with _magic_ , but the _modern_ part of the course is likely new to you. Once we’ve mastered that, we can move on to how it’s applied to spellcraft….”

* * *

“That was freaking _ace_ ,” Char breathed, as the trio walked away from the Modern Magic classroom.

The departing students around them were chattering so much that the words faded into a sort of white noise. The word “Croix” kept popping up, though.

“I take back what I said earlier,” Tiffany said.

“About what?” Mani said. She wore a pained expression once more: whatever she’d forgotten about during Modern Magic, it had come back to her.

“I said Chariot was a decent entertainer. But after _this?_ ” Tiff laughed. “That was the most incredible illusion I’ve ever seen! Not flashy, not garish, just _beautiful_. Croix blows Chariot out of the water!”

“I suppose I should say thank you.”

Tiffany jumped back. Another of Croix’s disks was scooting along the wall next to her. From it projected a miniature image of Croix. “Sorry,” she said, “eavesdropping is a bad habit of mine. Always nosing in on things I shouldn’t—but what were you saying about Professor Chariot?”

“Oh, that you’re _way_ better than she is.” Tiffany smiled. “And, to be quite honest, I’m not sure what value she provides to this school as a teacher.”

“Mate.” Char tapped her on the shoulder. “That’s harsh.”

“Oh, tell me I’m wrong!”

“Ahem.” Croix was smiling in a thin-lipped kind of way. Her disk slid down the wall and onto the floor, and her hologram grew to full height. “I know that my colleague can be… easy to get the wrong impression of. So let me offer some advice to help you on your educational journey.” Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly Tiff felt like an experiment that had produced a null result. Something about the way Croix looked at her, as if through a microscope, with the faintest of frowns on her face. “Never underestimate Chariot du Nord.”

Tiffany put her hands on her hips. “And how would that help my education?”

“Because Professor Chariot is one of the greatest and most influential witches who has ever lived,” Croix said, her tone utterly flat as she leaned over Tiffany, “and the sooner you realize how lucky you are to have her as your teacher, the sooner you stand to benefit from your extraordinary good fortune.”

It was the same way Diana Cavendish had described herself earlier that day: not an opinion but a fact. This time, it was harder to credit. “She’s a talented illusionist,” Tiffany said, squinting, “but you just blew her out of—”

“How do you think I was able to do what I’ve just done? By building on her work.” Croix rolled her eyes. “Kids these days. Not appreciating the classics.” Then she looked past Tiff and frowned. “Miss… Kairouani, is that right? Are you feeling okay?”

Mani’s teeth were clenched. “I’m fine,” she said, a lie that couldn’t have fooled a five-year-old.

“Mani,” Tiff said, “what’s wrong? Is it really trouble with your….” She trailed off, but motioned with her head in the general direction of Mani’s digestive tract. However, Mani shook her head sharply. “Then what is—”

Char burst out into guffaws. “What?” Tiff said.

“I just got it,” Char gasped. “Modern witch. Rides the modern version of a broom.” She gestured at the disk under Croix’s feet. “She’s riding a roomba! It’s a roomba! This is the greatest thing ever!”

Professor Croix frowned deeper. “I’m… not sure if I understand.” But Char just kept laughing.

“We’re going to be late,” Tiff muttered, and grabbed Char. “Have an excellent day, Professor,” she said perfunctorily, and hurried along the corridor.

“You as well, Miss… Vandergard. And mind my advice.”

“Did you not do that on purpose!?” Char howled, as she was dragged away.

* * *

“ _Mind my advice_ ,” Tiff muttered under her breath. Which was hard to do, since her breaths had to be pretty low themselves: Professor Lukić’s classroom was filling up with noxious fumes as she stirred her cauldron, and Tiff found herself breathing through her shirtsleeve. If the Professor had ever heard of lab safety, perhaps she’d thought it had been some passing fad. Maybe she’d thought the same of hygiene.

“Potions and poisons, poisons and potions,” the crone cackled. “If you don’t concentrate hard enough while brewing, dear students of mine, one may very well become the other! We potion-makers dance on the knife-edge between life and death, soaring potential and cold hard reality….”

Impressive-sounding boilerplate. Tiffany squinted, and not just because the gases were irritating her eyes.

Why would Croix defend Chariot?

“Ow, my organs,” Char said, flapping her hand around in an attempt to dispel the gases encroaching upon her. Mani wasn’t even trying, though: she was just turning green as they wafted over her. She was still trembling, glancing around the room as if searching for escape routes.

“So, let us begin. The cauldron has boiled enough, and we are ready for the infusion of—"

“I have to go!” Mani yelled, and stood up. With something between a sprint and a hobble, she ran down the stairs and out of the room. Apparently she _had_ been looking for escape routes.

“—pickled garlic,” Professor Lukić continued as if nothing had happened. “Just a pinch will do, of course, and then after that….”

Tiff nudged Char. “I’m not sure she’s okay.”

“Course she ain’t.” Char shrugged. “If she’d just gone at lunch she’d be fine.”

There was a long pause, filled only by the droning of Lukić and the bubbling of her cauldron. Then Tiff spoke up again.  “Don’t you think we should—”

“No. I don’t think we can help her.” Char frowned. “Or if we _can_ help, I _really_ don’t want to.”

“Don’t be _crude_.” Tiff shot Char a glare. Then her eyes widened.

Through the window, just barely visible behind the classroom’s noxious fumes, there was a witch sprinting out onto the grounds. And unless Tiff’s eyes were deceiving her—which was, to be fair, a very real possibility—that witch was Mani.

Tiff squinted, then glanced at the Professor, but she seemed determined to continue her lesson no matter what happened. So Tiff stood up and strode to the window, peering through it.

That was definitely Mani running across the grounds. She kept glancing back at the school, and redoubling her pace each time she did. Sweat beaded on her face, visible even from this distance.

“We need to go,” Tiff said, and grabbed Char’s arm.

“Mate?”

Tiff turned to the front of the room and declared, “Professor Lukić? Please excuse us.”

“You’re excused—now add this leaf of wormwood, crushed and dissolved, to produce the effect we desire….”

She didn’t even pause, and her eyes remained fixed upon the cauldron. Tiff supposed she had to have tenure.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Char said, as Tiff dragged her from the room.

“Something’s wrong with Mani,” Tiff hissed. “And _don’t_ say it’s constipation. I just saw her run outside. Unless you think she’s trying to find the _outhouse_?”

“I dunno. She’s from Tunisia, maybe they use them—”

“Not funny. Where are the _stairs?_ ”

Tiffany sprinted down the corridor, Char in tow, looking around for any evidence of a stairwell. Then she looked up and noticed two things. One of them was that Professor Chariot was walking down the hallway in front of her, carrying a load of textbooks and conversing with Diana Cavendish. The other was that Tiffany wouldn’t be able to stop in time. “Sorry!” Tiffany yelped, frantically trying to halt her momentum.

“Mm?” Chariot glanced up from her conversation, and her eyes had time to widen before Tiffany slammed into her. Tiff hit the floor hard, expecting to hear the thuds of textbooks hitting the floor all around her like giant hailstones. However, when she looked up, Chariot hadn’t fallen or dropped a single textbook. “Can I help you?” she asked. “And shouldn’t you be in—”

“Where are the stairs?” Tiff scrambled to her feet. “We need to find our friend Mani, it’s important!”

“Er… keep going and take a left, but what’s so important that you should skip—”

“Thank you! Sorry about the collision!” Tiff grabbed Char again and sprinted.

“Where are you going? Hey!”

What an odd question to ask, Tiff thought, after Chariot had just _told_ them where to go. Then she winced. The adrenaline was wearing off, and she was feeling the impact of having run into Chariot. For some reason, it felt like she’d run into a brick wall.

* * *

“Mani!”

It had taken another minute to exit the building, and another five to find Mani on the grounds, but they’d done it. Mani turned around as Tiff called out again, “Mani!”

“Too much running,” Char gasped. “Way too much running.”

“Stay back!” Mani’s voice was pained. She was posed in an awkward half-crouch, and had her wand out thrust at the sky. She flicked it upward a few times, breathing hard each time, and nothing happened. “ _Pharus_ , come on, _pharus_ —it’s not… coming _out_. I waited too long!”

“Are you… _sure_ it’s not the bathroom problem?”

“Shut up!” Mani took in a shuddering breath. “ _And run._ ”

“Mani, what’s wrong?”

“Too much magic,” she grunted. “Not just a static amount. It’s always building up, and if I don’t—if I don’t find an outlet—” She gasped. Her wand was glowing, vibrating. “Get away!” she yelled, brandishing it.

Tiff had seen what the business end of that wand could do. “Come on!” she said, grabbing Char’s hand again and backing up.

Sparks flew from the wood. Now Char was backing up under her own power. Mani took a deep breath, looked up, and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

Her wand glowed with a blinding light, and then something slammed into Tiffany’s stomach. A moment later, she heard the explosion.

Then she just heard ringing, and saw nothing but black. A moment later, her sense of touch caught up and told her she’d been knocked prone, and the feeling on her face was dirt. She shoved herself up and saw a crater in front of her, and Char on the ground to her left. Her breath caught. “Mani!” she shouted, with a voice she couldn’t hear.

But Mani was still standing, still holding her wand—barely. Jets of light kept blasting out of it, and the jets kept exploding either when they struck a solid surface, or a few meters away if they were flying into the air. Between the recoil and the shockwaves, Mani wasn’t able to keep control of her wand. Her arm whipped around like a cat toy as magic flew in every direction, and the pain on her face was obvious.

“Mani!” Tiffany yelled, barely able to hear herself over the tumult. She tried to run forward, but her stomach struck something yet again. She looked down and saw the Shooting Star hovering at just above waist height, blocking her as she tried to run. “Let me go!” she yelled, but the Star was as firm as an iron railing in front of her.

“What’s going on?”

The voice was faintly audible under the explosions and through the ringing in Tiffany’s ears. Tiff forced her head around and saw Diana, who must have followed them. She looked somewhat out of breath. Behind her, Chariot was running as well, though quite a bit further back. “What is she _doing_?” Diana said, pulling out her wand and brandishing it.

“Diana!” Tiffany gasped: she’d have sighed with relief if she could spare the breath. “Mani’s got too much magic, she can’t control it! She’s going to hurt herself! Do something!”

“All right.” Diana took a breath and strode forward. “Obviously, the first step will be to contain her, so she can’t do any damage to the school or herself. I’ll start with a shield spell.”

“Yes—wait, _no!_ ” Tiffany stretched out an impotent hand. “Containing it has been the whole problem! She needs to let it out!”

She tried to run forward at Diana, but the Star still held her back. “Please stay out of the way,” Diana said, flicking her wand to the side in preparation. “I don’t want you to get—”

Mani’s wand sent off another explosion. The explosion struck the ground and blasted a shower of rocks into the air, and one of those rocks struck Diana right between the eyes. She went down like a sack of bricks.

Tiffany gawped. Diana Cavendish, greatest witch at Luna Nova, had just been KO’d by a _pebble_.

“Get down.”

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, pushing her firmly to the ground. She looked up and saw Chariot standing firm. “Chariot,” Tiff said.

“Please look after Diana for me.”

And then she was off, striding toward Mani. “You can’t!” Tiff said, reaching toward her. “Mani’s too dangerous, she’s going to—”

Mani’s wand twitched and then blasted again, sending an explosion right at Chariot. It happened too fast for Tiff to even close her eyes: the blast shot toward her—

And Chariot deflected it with a flick of her wand. The motion was almost offhanded.

Tiffany stared.

* * *

“Stay away,” Mani sobbed, as the teacher kept walking closer. She seemed to be murmuring something under her breath, and her wand shimmered, followed by her whole body. “I mean it!” Mani yelled. “I’m going to hurt you!”

“Imani, right? Imani bint Abdallah al Kairouani.”

The witch’s voice was calm, measured. Like she was walking through a tranquil garden. “If I’ve heard correctly, your friends call you Mani.”

“Please,” Mani gasped. Her arm was worn out: it was all she could do to hold onto the wand, as the magic boiled inside her. She felt like the proverbial teapot, holding a tempest. Ready to blow her lid at any time.

Her wand was pointed at Chariot. It fired.

Chariot deflected the blast with casual ease.

“What,” Mani said, and then Chariot surged forward and grabbed her wrist, and held her hand toward the sky.

“Is it okay if I call you Mani too?” she asked, smiling. Her eyes were a warm red behind her glasses. “If I understand correctly, you’ve got some magic you need to vent.”

“It’s too much,” Mani gasped, feeling the power lance along her arm again. Her wand fired another blast. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here—I’m just messing everything up.”

“Then I guess we’d better find a good use for all that magic.” Mani could feel her own breaths slowing down as Chariot spoke, her voice as soft as her grip on Mani’s wrist was firm. “Repeat after me, Imani. _Bella vida._ ”

“I can’t cast anything,” Mani said, “it just comes out as explosions—”

“Trust me. _Bella vida_.”

“Bella vida?” Mani said.

“On three, cast it with me. One, two—”

“ _Bella vida_!” they both yelled.

And abruptly, Mani felt like the stopper had been pulled off. She yelped as all the magic in her body surged up her arm and through her wand, into a jet of green light that surged skyward. It flew for five long seconds, and then—

Red exploded across the sky. Red, and then yellow, and the rest of the spectrum forming a beautiful rainbow of fireworks, filling Mani’s whole field of vision, as though the sun were peeking out after the world’s worst storm. The fireworks thundered in her ears, as loud as her earlier explosions had been, but after it was done and the last embers glittered their way out of the sky… silence.

Mani’s legs trembled beneath her, and she would have collapsed if Chariot didn’t bend down right then and pick her up in both arms. “It’s okay,” Chariot murmured, as Mani’s vision swam. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

Mani closed her eyes, and felt a sensation of movement. It seemed Chariot was carrying her back to the building. That was nice: she didn’t feel up to walking there on her own.

“Diana,” said Chariot, “are you all right?”

“Yes, I think so,” said a shaky voice, and Mani heard the rustling sounds of someone getting to her feet. “I was caught off guard, that’s all.”

“Miss al Kairouani!”

This was the strident voice of Professor Finnelan. With dread brewing in her stomach, Mani cracked open her eye. “You have damaged the school grounds and disrupted classes with your actions,” Finnelan declared, and indeed there was a flood of students coming out of the school behind her. Mani wondered how much of the show they’d seen.  “Would you mind _explaining_ yourself?”

Mani tired to say something, but the words didn’t come.

“No? Then for this, the punishment will be—” And then, Professor Finnelan looked at Chariot. Her expression paled. “None. There will be… no punishment.” She backed away sheepishly.

Mani glanced up, just in time to see Chariot with an expression in her eyes like a loaded gun. Then it faded as soon as she looked back down at Mani, to be replaced with that comforting warmth. “No punishment?” Mani asked. “But I could have hurt someone. I _did_ hurt someone.”

“Let’s talk, first.” Chariot sighed. “Why did this happen?”

“I—ever since Starfall, I’ve had too much magic. It builds up if I can’t vent it off, a-and—”

Mani stammered herself into silence. Chariot just nodded. “I see,” she said. “This school’s had some troubles in the past with meeting the needs of our more unique students, so I’m not sure if there’s much we could have done… but I really wish you’d told someone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll figure out a way you can safely vent your magic. And in return,” Chariot said, her voice taking on a harder edge, “if this ever happens again, there _will_ be consequences.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mani said without thinking about it. She wiggled her legs, feeling some strength in them again. “Can you let me down now? I think I can walk.”

Chariot bent down and set her on the ground. Mani took a few stumbling steps away, and got a good look at Chariot. She hadn’t realized before, but Chariot’s hair-tie seemed to have been blown off, letting her long red hair hang loosely behind her.

“You really are her, aren’t you,” Mani mumbled. “You’re _the_ Shiny Chariot.”

Chariot smiled.

“I watched your show, you know.”

The smile vanished. “Oh, um. You did?”

“Yeah. Not live,” she added, and for some reason Chariot’s body seemed to be sagging, as if with relief. Mani frowned, but kept going: “I don’t think you ever did a show in Tunisia, but I watched tapes and DVDs. You were _amazing_. I couldn’t use magic back then, but I thought that if I ever was able to, you were the kind of witch I’d want to be.” Mani looked down at the ground. “But look at me. How could I ever be a great witch like _this_?”

“I am looking at you.” Chariot’s hand rested on her shoulder. “And do you want to guess what I see?”

“A walking disaster?”

“A witch who looks a lot like I once did.”

Mani looked up, startled. Chariot chuckled. “If you watched my old videos, then you remember my catchphrase, right?”

“Um… a believing heart is your magic?”

“That’s right. I know it sounds pretty lame, but… I was always making mistakes when I started out. I got some people pretty upset, and I wondered if I’d ever be a great witch at all. But if you believe in yourself, and keep working hard….” Chariot’s eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “You’re going to be an amazing witch, Imani. As long as you _believe_.”

Mani felt herself smiling. “Call me Mani.”

* * *

The three of them sat in their dorm room. Mani was holding what looked like a magic eight ball, but it was something Chariot had given her. “Watch this,” she said, and shoved her wand into it. “ _Pharus!_ ”

There was the sound of an explosion, but quiet. Like something heard through someone else’s headphones.

“I can use this!” Mani said excitedly. “It’s got some kind of anti-magic rock in it, and I can vent magic into it so I don’t ever have to have an outburst again!”

An anti-magic eight ball, then. “But what if you lose it?” Tiff said from her bunk. “Isn’t this a bandaid solution?”

“Tiff, mate,” Char said below her. “Don’t spoil this.”

Tiff groaned.

“Professor Chariot is _amazing_ , isn’t she?” Mani said, leaning back on her bed, eyes shining. “She said I can be a witch.”

No, she wasn’t, Tiff wanted to blurt out. Chariot was a nervous wreck who couldn’t even conduct a class without getting flustered. And yet she’d seen Chariot walk into an explosion hazard without flinching.

Maybe she _did_ have a twin.

Tiffany groaned.

“Whoa, Mani,” Char said below her, “those are some pretty gnarly bandages.”

Tiff looked up and saw Mani with her wand arm extended, a wrap of bandages visible under her sleeve. “Oh, yeah. Chariot took me to the hospital wing, because my arm got kind of messed up with all the magic. It’s okay, I can take them off tomorrow!”

“That’s good.”

“It is!” Mani frowned. “I’m glad I didn’t have to stay overnight or anything. There was a girl in one of the beds there, and she didn’t look too happy.”

Tiffany bolted upright, slamming her head into the ceiling. “ _Ow_ —what? Who was it?”

“I don’t know. She was really pale… short black hair.”

Tiff’s eyes widened. She’d completely forgotten, with everything else happening that day.

 _Alice_.


	7. Social Mobility (1)

_Six years ago._

Sagging birthday balloons tied to a hospital bed.

Alice was pretty sure this was what adults called “irony”, but from her view _on_ the hospital bed, it didn’t look like irony. It just looked sad. “Happy birthday to me,” she whispered, “happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Alice—”

“Happy birthday to you!”

Alice looked up. Tiffany was standing in the doorway, hands outstretched. One of them had a card in it, and both had gloves to match her face mask. “ _Aaand maaanyyy mooooooore_ ,” she sang, before springing forward, her face instantly changing from excitement to worry. Well, as much of her face as Alice could see, anyway. “Sorry I couldn’t make it in time yesterday! Mother and Father stayed late at that conference and I couldn’t leave early or anything!”

“Tiffany!” Alice said, forcing herself to sit up a little higher in her bed. “Thanks for coming!”

“Aww, you’re welcome!” Tiffany leaned forward, arms wide again, but then stopped herself. “Am I allowed to give you a birthday hug? I know the doctors don’t want me too close in case I catch anything from you, or… you catch anything from me….”

Alice looked down at her lap.

She’d heard the doctors talking to her mom, and then her mom trying to dumb it down like she was some little kid. She was nine! She could spell “chronic” and “immunodeficiency” just fine, and she was working on “mononucleosis”.

Her reverie was interrupted by Tiffany leaning in a little closer, and whispering, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Alice smiled and hugged her best friend.

“And here’s your birthday card and birthday gift!” Tiffany said as soon as she’d pulled away. She dropped the card on Alice’s lap. “Open it, open it!”

When Alice opened it, she saw two things. The first was the written message: _Happy birthday to the best witch ever! From, Tiffany Vandergard_. Her signature was huge and loopy: it looked like she’d been practicing.

The second thing was a hundred-dollar bill.

“I couldn’t think of anything to get you,” Tiffany said as Alice lifted the bill, “and then I thought, you can get anything you want with money! So I asked Mother for some money for your present, and she gave me this! I bet you can get _so_ many snacks from the vending machine!”

It seemed unfair. Even if Alice didn’t know how to say it, it seemed unfair that Tiffany got to be all happy and energetic, and Alice didn’t even know if she’d be able to walk to the vending machine and back. Or if the vending machine took hundred dollar bills.

She smiled. “Thanks, Tiffany. Hey, tell me about that conference you were at. There must have been some pretty cool witches there, right?”

Tiffany pouted. Alice couldn’t see her mouth, but she could tell anyway: it was a whole-body pout. “It wasn’t interesting at all. Just a bunch of old ladies talking about how magic is dying and how to preserve it and so on. We weren’t even allowed to use brooms in the building! You don’t wanna hear about that. How was your birthday party?”

Alice closed her card and set it on her bedside table. “It was okay. The cake was nice. Mom was there, so were a bunch of the nurses and the doctors.”

“Any cool presents?” Alice didn’t have time to answer this before Tiffany gasped and pointed at the table. “Wait a second, where’s your wand? You have your wand, right?”

Alice just looked down and to the side, away from Tiffany.

Tiffany gasped again. “No way! Don’t they know how important your practice is? How are you gonna be the greatest witch ever if you don’t practice?”

“The nurses don’t really get magic. None of them are witches. But they said….” Alice sniffed. “They said I might not be strong enough for magic anymore.”

Tiffany didn’t have anything to say to that; her smile just sagged, kind of like the birthday balloons. Alice’s sobs started turning into coughs.

“Hey,” Tiffany finally said, her voice sounding a little panicked, “I know why you’re feeling so sad! It’s because these balloons are sad!” She pulled her wand out from a pocket, pointed it at one of the balloons, and cried, “ _Sufflo!_ ”

The balloon inflated a little. Enough that it floated toward the ceiling again, its string taut once more. “There!” Tiffany said, staring at it, and then turning to face Alice. “Isn’t that… better?”

Alice couldn’t stop coughing. She _hated_ this part, the part where her body just got tired out doing nothing. She sank further beneath her covers.

“I get it.” Tiffany was staring at the floor. “You can’t smile if you’re sick, can you. You can’t have fun like this. What’s so good about magic if it can’t actually help people?”

“Tiffany,” Alice tried to say, before another cough cut her off.

Tiffany looked up, eyes shining. Not with happiness, but something else… maybe _determination_. “That’s it! I’m gonna become the best witch ever, and I’m gonna figure out how to help you, and how to help everyone else too!” She stepped forward and clasped Alice’s hand, which still lay above the covers. “And then you’re gonna be all better, and you can be the best witch ever too, and we’ll smile together!”

Alice forced a smile, but only for about a second. “Thanks, Tiffany,” she said. “Can you go now? I need to rest.”

“Already? No, I get it.” But before Tiffany let go, she gripped tighter. “I _promise_.”

And then she was gone. Leaving Alice all alone in an empty, sterile room.

“You promise,” Alice dully repeated, curling up under her sheet. The words seemed to echo in the open space. “Good luck with that.”

* * *

_Present Day_

With one hand, Diana held the Financial Times; the other hand alternated between lifting her teacup and her cereal spoon to her lips.

She’d learned some time ago: it paid to multitask. Once upon a time she’d restricted it to reading an instructional book while walking through her house, or studying wandwork discreetly under the table at meals. These days, she had a few more responsibilities, and she had learned to step it up.

She wasn’t the only one, either.

“Whoa, coming through!” Akko called out with a muffled voice, careening across the breakfast hall. She dropped her heavy load of books onto the table across from Diana. A line of tea spilled over the edge of Diana’s cup. She raised an eyebrow. “Sorry,” Akko said, and then swallowed the half-muffin jammed in her mouth.

“You cannot _possibly_ need that many textbooks,” Diana said, wiping up the tealine with a napkin before it reached the table.

“I do! But they’re not all for _me_.” Akko wiggled her eyebrows, but when Diana frowned, she sighed and explained, “I’m rereading the first-year textbooks too. As the officially unofficial mentor to the first year class, I’ve gotta be able to answer any questions they’ve got!”

“Are you sure this is what being a mentor entails?”

“I have _no idea!_ ” Akko flung herself face-first onto the table, shaking it again: Diana grabbed her teacup but failed to account for the cereal bowl. She wiped up the droplets of milk that had fallen onto the table. “I’m sorta making it up as I go,” Akko said, her voice once again muffled.

Diana was about to reply before she felt a finger tap her shoulder.

She looked around at a first-year-looking witch behind her: short black hair, and a pale face that was less beautiful, more sickly. Diana noticed a set of handlebars in front of her, then looked down and saw the girl was propped up on some form of mobility scooter. “Excuse me,” she said in a breathy tone, “are you Diana Cavendish?”

“Why, yes, I am,” Diana said. Smoothly, as if she hadn’t been interrupted in conversation with her girlfriend. “What’s your name?”

“Alice Gainesbury.” The girl lifted a big book and proffered it to Diana: it looked old but well-kept. “Could I get your autograph?”

Diana blinked, setting down her newspaper and cup. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve been getting the autographs of all the greatest and most important witches for my book!” Alice said as she opened the book, and flipped past several pages of signatures to get to a blank space. She pulled out a pen and offered it to Diana. “Could you sign it, please?”

Diana sighed, and smiled at herself. Really, she should have been expecting this. The whole world knew who she was by now, between being a rising star _and_ appearing on every screen on the planet in the most dramatic magic act ever televised. How had she never been asked for an autograph before?

“By all means,” she said, and took the pen and book—but almost fumbled the book. “Pardon me!” she said. “It’s lighter than I expected.”

“It’s enchanted so I don’t get tired out carrying it!” Alice beamed as Diana signed a giant _Diana Cavendish_ onto the page. “Thanks, Miss Cavendish! Have a great day!” She grabbed her handlebars and turned around to leave.

“Hang on,” Akko said, looking up from the table. “Don’t you want my autograph too?”

Alice and Diana both stared at her. Her face was red from being pressed against the table. “Who are you?” Alice said brightly.

“I’m Atsuko Kagari!” Akko pointed to herself with a thumb. “But you can call me—”

“I have no idea who that is. Bye!”

Alice turned the rest of the way around and pushed herself away with her right foot, while her left knee rested on a cushion. She moved slowly, as if she didn’t have much steam in her engine.

“I wasn’t even wearing the Groucho glasses,” Akko mumbled.

Diana looked around, and failed to stifle a surprised laugh. “Don’t tell me you actually _did_ wear those the other day?”

“Everyone loved them! They were a hit!”

Diana rolled up her newspaper and gently batted Akko on the head. “Hey!” Akko protested.

“I can’t believe you sometimes,” Diana said, shaking her head and smiling. “You go _so_ far out of your way… like with these textbooks. Aren’t you worried about… stretching yourself thin?”

“Look who’s talking.” Akko pulled out her wand and tapped Diana right back on the head. “How’s the Cavendish Manor’s finances doing?”

“Quite well. Our stocks are up four point three percent today on average, though some of our securities have—” Diana stopped at Akko’s sly smile. “Point taken. But the estate _needs_ me to keep an eye on things.”

“And the first years need _me_ ,” Akko said, a determined frown overtaking her smile. “At least _one_ of them will, I’m sure of it. And I’m gonna be there for her, like Shiny—like _Professor_ Chariot was always there for me.”

Diana smiled, then put down the newspaper to reach her hand across the table. Akko took it automatically, and the two of them shared each other’s warmth.

Akko spoke up. “I’ve got, like, eight minutes before my next class—”

“Shh,” Diana whispered. “You can stay for a little while.” They locked eyes for a few seconds, smiling at each other.

The seconds stretched out into minutes. Diana looked around, then said, “So, how are Lotte and Sucy doing—”

Akko raised a finger to her lips. “I thought this was us time.”

“Right.”

Then a red blur whizzed over the table, smacking them both in in the side of the head. “Ow!” Akko yelled, rubbing her head and looking after the blur. “Is that the Shooting Star?”

* * *

“Young lady!” Professor Finnelan declared, standing over Tiff as she tried to hide inside her hat. “You _will_ keep that broom under control or face the consequences!”

“You know it’s, like, the legendary broom or whatever, right?” Char said, sitting at the same breakfast table as Tiff and Mani. “It kinda does what it wants.”

Professor Finnelan glared at her, the kind of glare that cut through steel. However, Char was made of either far stronger or far squishier stuff. The glare bounced off.  “What?” she said with a shrug.

Char was correct, which was precisely the problem. Breakfast time wasn’t even over, and the _legendary broom_ in question had smacked a dozen girls upside the head with its feathers, willfully upended trays of bagels and muffins, and spilled some milk in front of a crowd of crying first-years. Tiff understood that it enjoyed being free, but why did it have to be free _in here?_

At present the Shooting Star was hovering tauntingly overhead, well out of arm’s reach. Tiff looked up and grimaced at it.

Professor Finnelan pointed an accusing finger her way. “I don’t _care_ whether it’s legendary, or whether you found it in an old closet! You’ll make every effort to stop this mayhem if you don’t want to receive detention on your second day of classes, and to get it replaced with the worst school issued broom we have!”

That got Tiff to bolt to her feet. “Oh, um, yes, ma’am!” She stood on her chair and reached for the Star. “Come on, Star,” she said, and then made kissing noises with her mouth. And then regretted it. What was this, a kitten?

Yet it seemed to be working. The Star hovered a little lower, albeit still out of reach.

“Come on, Star,” Tiff repeated, beckoning it down, saying the first things that came into her head. “Come on, let’s just be together for a while, okay? I’ll, uh, wax your handle!”

“ _That’s what she said!_ ”

“ _Shut up, Char_ ,” Tiff hissed, before smiling back up at her broom. Well, _the_ broom. Not even slightly _her_ broom. “Please? If you don’t get down here, I’ll be using one of the school brooms! Just come on down, and I’ll—”

“Get down here this instant,” Professor Finnelan exclaimed, whipping out her wand and pointing it skyward, “before I blow you to bits!”

“No, don’t—”

And it had been going so well. The Shooting Star, which had been inching steadily closer, took off as quickly as its name implied through an open window. Professor Finnelan grumbled and turned around to leave.

“I have a legendary _cat_ ,” Tiffany grumbled, sitting back down in her chair. “Did you know it tried to follow me into the bathroom this morning? Why does my broom have to be so strange?”

“I don’t know,” Mani said, stirring her cereal with her spoon. “I think it’s kind of nice. Having something that cares that much about you.”

“Yup. Everyone loves being peeped on by a broom, right?” Char rolled her eyes. “I’m with Tiff. It’s weird.”

“Excuse me?” said a familiar voice. “Are you Anne Finnelan?”

“ _Professor_ Finnelan,” came the immediate reply. “Can I help you, young lady?”

“Your work in transfiguration magic is incredible! I was wondering, could I have your autograph?”

Tiff twisted around in her seat, just in time to see Professor Finnelan blush, and accept a pen from an outstretched hand. “Oh! Well, anything for a fan, I suppose,” she said.

“ _Alice?_ ” Tiff said, quietly.

Alice looked over, and her eyes widened—but she didn’t let go of the book as Professor Finnelan was signing it. “Tiffany?” she said.

“Alice!” Tiff stood up from her chair and ran over to Alice, then slowed down to grab her in a hug—gently so as not to hurt her. “ _Where were you?_ ” she said.

“Keep signing it,” Alice said, as Professor Finnelan hesitated. “It’s nice to see you again too, Tiffany,” she continued in a somewhat rote tone. “Aaaaand… thank you!”

Professor Finnelan finished signing and returned the pen. Alice took it, and returned the book to a cubby on her scooter, then hugged Tiffany back, albeit without the same enthusiasm. That was fine: Tiffany knew her friend.

“Oh my goodness, _where were you?_ ” Tiffany repeated. “I waited by the Tor for an hour! And then it turned out you’d already gotten to school, but I didn’t see you at the entrance ceremony, and I didn’t see you yesterday either, and—I was worried!”

“You were?” Mani said, behind her. “You should have told us!”

Tiff whirled her head around to glare at Mani, then looked back to Alice. But Alice was frowning. “What do you _think_ happened?” she said. “The same thing that _always_ happens.”

Tiff pulled her hand to her mouth. “You were sick again?”

Alice grunted. “It started two mornings ago, and Mom wanted me to get to Luna Nova before I got worse. It only lasted through yesterday, though. I like it when it does that.” She smiled for a moment, then scowled. “You _knew_ this could happen!”

“Sorry! I should have arrived earlier, but you haven’t been sick for a while, I was hoping—” Tiffany sighed. “I thought you’d just left without me.”

“Are you kidding?” Alice laughed. “I wouldn’t just leave you behind.”

“Sorry,” Tiffany said. “It’s really good to see you.”

“So, you’re the Alice that Tiff mentioned,” said Char, leaning on a table.

Alice turned her attention from Tiffany to Char, and smiled blankly. “Tiff?”

“Oh yeah, it’s short for Tiffany. It’s what I call her cuz we’re besties.” Char leaned forward and draped her arm over Tiff, and pulled Mani close with her other arm. “Me and Mani and Tiff here. Kinda had a life changing bonding kinda experience the other day. You shoulda been there.” She winked.

Alice didn’t exactly wink back. “Shut up, Char,” Tiffany hissed, and then turned back around to face her friend. “Alice,” Tiffany began, “I really—”

“ _I_ wouldn’t just leave _you_ behind,” Alice repeated, stiffly. Without another word, she swung her mobility scooter around and sped away.

“Alice!” Tiffany shook off Char’s arm and ran forward after her, and quickly caught up. There was a step up at the edge of the dining hall. Alice was stopped there, glaring at it like it was her worst enemy.

“They _really_ didn’t think about accessibility here, did they?” Tiffany said, trying to sound jokey and uncertain if she was succeeding. “Mani had a similar problem yesterday, actually… here, let me—”

“ _I’m fine!_ ” Alice hissed. She took a deep breath, then heaved her scooter up and over the step, and then took another few breaths after that, leaning heavily on her handlebars. “I don’t... want to talk to you right now.”

Tiffany backed away, staring, as Alice collected her breath and wheeled away.

“Aww, that sucks,” Char said. “She gets that dope scooter, and I don’t get to use my brooms? This is discrimination.”

“It’s really not,” Mani mumbled, “not if she’s chronically ill—”

“And I’m chronically lazy, it’s totally a thing!” Char seemed ready to keep going, but then Tiff fixed with a glare, and she petered out. “Oh, yeah, and I totally just made her feel bad and screwed with your friendship, didn’t I. Sorry.”

Tiffany growled. So what if Alice didn’t want to talk to her? She _needed_ to make this right!

And then Mani looked at her watch, and gasped. “Oh my goodness, we’re gonna be late for class!” She shoved the watch under Tiff’s face, and Tiffany saw that she had… she pulled out her schedule… three minutes before her first class of Magic Astronomy with Professor Chariot. Three minutes in a building she barely knew how to navigate..

Alice would still be around at lunchtime, right?

“Let’s go!” she said.

“Ugh,” Char said, slouching along as Mani and Tiff started running. “Too fast.”

Tiffany skidded to a halt, sighed, and pulled out her wand. “ _Paleis Capama._ ” Char rose from the floor, surrounded by a green glow. “Now _come on_ ,” she said, resuming her run and dragging Char behind her like a half-deflated balloon.

Alice would definitely still be around at lunchtime, right? Definitely.

* * *

Alice had learned long ago how to avoid falling asleep from tiredness, at least for a while.

This potions class was testing that ability. She sagged forward in her seat as the elderly Professor Lukić, her hair so gray with age as to appear blue, droned on about how marvelous and mystical and terrifying potions were. It was like falling asleep at the beach, with the white noise of the waves to carry her to dreamland….

Something prodded her arm. Something very small and pointy.

Alice jerked awake and looked sharply to her right. “Yo, dude,” said the girl to her right, her hair shaggy and unkempt. Her glasses were huge, grossly magnifying her eyes. “Are you doing all right? Your energy’s really messed up.”

“My… I’m fine, thank you.” Alice shook herself and returned to trying to focus on the teaching. She wasn’t going to let herself get distracted again. She wasn’t—

“Okay, but, like, I think you’re my roommate?”

The girl jabbed her again, and when Alice looked down to see what was doing the jabbing, she recoiled with a yelp. That was a needle! A needle with a sort of copper handle on it! To be fair, the girl was holding it by the pointy end and jabbing her with the blunt end, but still! “What are you _doing_!” she hissed, yanking her arm toward herself.

“Your chi’s super blocked, dude. It’s probably why you couldn’t make it to the room all yesterday, right? Oh yeah, my name’s Rain, and you’re probably Alice, right?”

“What I am is _trying to work_.” Alice focused on the professor’s words, and tried to take note of what she was saying.

“... this class of potions, for instance, has a rather curious effect. They can _transport_ a witch with near-instantaneity! From standing upright, to a supine position, _six feet under_.” The professor cackled.

Frightening? Arguably. But completely irrelevant. Alice groaned, and Professor Lukić seemed too wrapped up in her own witchiness to notice. “Who am I kidding,” she mumbled to herself, and then suppressed a cough. “I should just skip the class and go back to bed.”

“Hell yeah, dude.” Rain raised her fist to Alice, and Alice wasn’t sure why: the girl didn’t seem ready to punch her. “Fight the system.”

“ _Don’t_ fight the system!” hissed the witch past Rain, in a Latin-accented voice. “The system is trying to help you!” She was taking feverish notes, fast enough that she was probably transcribing what Professor Lukić was saying word-for-word, and obvious muscles rippled beneath her robe with each movement.

“Oh yeah,” Rain said as Alice stared, “that’s our other roommate, Ximena. She made me go to bed at ten, and tried to get me up at six to go jogging. She’s _lame_.”

“I believe in a good night’s sleep, a daily regimen, and a proper education. If that makes me lame, then _so be it_.” Ximena flipped to the next page of her notebook with a flourish.

Alice sighed and returned to her own, paltry notes. She’d thought, or at least hoped, she’d be rooming with Tiffany. Then her first and second nights’ roommates had been a bunch of empty hospital beds, _just in case_ she was still contagious—and now her roommates would be _these_ two.

And Tiffany had already found someone else. Two someones. She’d been away from her for _two days_ , and already she’d—

Alice’s hand balled into a fist for as long as she could keep it that way.

* * *

Lunch tasted good, at least. Alice munched on some salad with the honey mustard dressing she liked, and she’d stashed several rolls into one of the cubbies on her mobility scooter for later. That was one nice thing about needing a scooter: extra storage space.

“Dude, you shouldn’t use so much salad sauce,” Rain said, reaching behind Alice’s back for some reason. She’d been doing it for minutes. “It overpowers the natural flavor.”

“I have to agree with Rain,” Ximena said, munching mechanically on her undressed salad. “It’s less healthy than eating the greens on their own.”

“I know what I like,” Alice muttered, staring at her salad. Rain’s hand moved in her peripheral vision again, and she ignored it. “And honey mustard is what I like.”

“But, dude, like—”

“I’m _not_ a _dude!_ ” Alice burst out, and rounded on Ximena in turn. “And what is this, the ‘share unwanted opinions on salad’ table? Let me eat in peace! And stop reaching behind my back!” she said, as Rain did it again.

“Whatever, I’m done,” Rain said, then got back to chowing down her unflavored vegetables like they were the most delicious things in the world.

Alice sighed and got back to her honey-mustard-with-salad.

“Alice!”

She looked up to see Tiffany approaching from the other side of the table. “Alice,” Tiffany said, “I am _so, so_ sorry about earlier.” She rounded around the table as she continued, “I didn’t have time earlier, because of classes, but now that it’s lunch, I just wanted to apologize properly for—your back’s covered in needles.”

Alice blinked. “What.” Then she twisted her neck around and gasped. Her back _was_ covered in needles. About a dozen of them, piercing her uniform and sticking into her skin in a strange geometric pattern. “ _What?_ ”

Rain beamed. “The treatment’s working, dude! You look way better! Though I guess I placed a couple to instill anger by mistake….”

“ _Get these out of me_.” Alice tried to reach behind her back, but she didn’t have the flexibility to reach a single needle. “Get these out _now!_ ”

“Ohhhh, nevermind, I did it right. You’re just pissed.” Rain stood up fast and started backing away. “I’ll talk to you later. Bye!” And she turned tail and started running.

“Alice,” Tiffany said, stepping forward, “I can pull those out for you—”

With a shriek of frustration, Alice spun her scooter around and kicked herself forward.

In a way, she had the advantage: wheels. But that didn’t really count when it was stacked up against her disadvantages of frailty, sickness, and so on. Despite all that, though, she was keeping pace with Rain, who seemed to be running as hard as she could.

“Don’t clench your teeth!”

Alice looked to her left to see Ximena jogging easily beside her, keeping pace without effort. “If you clench your teeth when you’re doing exercise, you get jaw cramps. They’re _not_ fun.”

Alice glared at her and kicked forward faster.

But then she rounded a corner and came upon her greatest enemy.

“Oh, man,” Rain said, grimacing awkwardly from atop a flight of stairs. “I don’t wanna make you feel, like, differently abled or anything by being up here… but on the other hand, I feel like you’re gonna kick my teeth in if I come down.”

With another shout of anger, Alice shoved her scooter aside and ran up the flight of stairs. She took two steps at a time, and before she knew it, she was at the top. Rain turned to run again, but Alice grabbed her by the collar and yanked her close, her other fist raised. “You… you pull these out of me…” she panted. “Right… right….”

Something occurred to her—something that probably should have occurred about a minute before. She was tired, sure. She was panting, sure. But she wasn’t _collapsed_.

She glanced down at the flight of stairs beneath her: two dozen steps that she’d just taken two at a time. Her mobility scooter lay on its side at the bottom.

Her hand slipped off Rain’s collar, and her other fist unclenched, just in time for both her hands to lean into her knees as she bent over with exertion. “What,” she panted, “what did you do to me?”

“It’s acupuncture, dude.” Rain pulled out another needle from her robe, just like the ones making a constellation on Alice’s back, and fiddled with it. “Ancient Chinese art that can totally unlock your crazy hidden energy. I told you it was working.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Ximena as she crested the steps, holding the scooter in both hands. “You don’t _unlock_ energy, you _grow_ it. Hey!” She set the scooter down, then took both of Alice’s shoulders with her hands, pulling her upright. “What if you came on my early morning jogs? I could use a running partner, and we could start slow if you need it!”

“That’s the one at, like, six, right?” Rain yawned. “You’re a crazy person.”

“It’s the best part of the day!” Ximena grinned, revealing two rows of pearly whites. “Come on, deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth. It’s better for you!”

Alice just stared down at her legs. She could run. Not forever—maybe not even as long as a normal person—but _she could run_.

“Yo, dude? Alice? Are you—are you crying?”

* * *

The poster on the wall read: ‘Witches Wanted—Poison Experiments—£10 per Test—Contact Sucy Manbavaran’. It had a bunch of strips of paper at the bottom with a phone number, which tore off easily. The poster itself, however, refused to come off.

“Sucy!” Akko yelled, yanking at it. “You can’t put up posters for potion experiments!”

“Why not?” Sucy hovered at Akko’s side like a wraith, with a satchel full of posters slung over her back. Her face was flat as usual, but it didn’t stop Akko from being able to see she was enjoying this. “You’re putting up posters, aren’t you?”

“It’s different!” Akko had an identical satchel. “My posters are for the relay race! Yours could really get someone hurt!”

“Well, I can’t test anything on you anymore—you’re immune to everything I’ve got.” Sucy shrugged. “They’re being compensated.”

“That is _so_ not the point!” Akko kept yanking at the loose corner at the top and finally ripped off just the corner, leaving the rest of the poster intact. “The first years don’t know better! What if they sign up as test subjects?”

“ _Victims_. The word you’re thinking of is _victims_.”

“Not better!” Akko growled. “How did you even glue this on?”

Sucy reached into her pocket and pulled out a corked glass vessel, in which swirled a viscous green liquid. “I call it the Diakko Adhesive.”

“Diakko? That sounds like my name… and… Diana’s name?”

“Lotte says it’s your ship name. Like relationship,” Sucy added, as Akko squinted. “It’s a good name for glue, because you’re inseparable.”

“We are _not_ inseparable!” Akko yelled.

“Hello, Akko!”

Before Akko could react, Diana was in her peripheral vision, and took Akko's hand in hers. “How was your second day back?” Diana asked.

“Okay,” Akko said, pouting and blushing a bit, “maybe we’re a little inseparable. And it was great, thanks,” she added, smiling back at Diana.

They looked into each others’ eyes for a few seconds, and Akko lost her train of thought.

“But don’t change the subject!” she said suddenly, spinning back to look at Sucy, who had her tongue out in disgust. “You have to take this down so I can put up my posters!”

“Akko,” Diana said, “just put them up… _over_ hers.”

Akko blinked. “Diana, you’re a genius!” She yanked out a poster in her left hand and a wand in her right, enchanted Sucy’s poster with a wave of her wand, then slapped her poster onto it. Sucy’s poster, bewitched to be super-sticky, held the Relay Race poster perfectly. “There!” Akko said, hands triumphantly on her hips. “Now the first years will know about the race instead of how to poison themselves for money!”

“Sure.” Sucy walked to the left, past her and Diana, and pulled out another poster from her satchel. “Onto the next one, then.” She splashed some of the Diakko Adhesive on the wall, slapped the poster on, and kept walking.

“Wait, whaddya mean ‘next’?” Akko looked the other way from where Sucy was walking, and saw a line of posters at regular intervals, all down the hallway.

Akko ran down the hallway, took a hard left, and came across yet more posters. What was worse, as she kept running, she abruptly came upon a row of posters that _all_ had their phone numbers ripped off. “Who _took_ these?” Akko wailed.

* * *

“I am gonna make _so_ much money, dude,” Rain said, pulling off yet another row of phone numbers as they walked past some brunette girl who was yanking at her hair. Rain stuffed them into a pocket that was already bulging with paper shreds.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Alice said, trundling along beside her on her mobility scooter. “You don’t get ten pounds per paper, you get ten pounds for showing up. They’re not coupons.” The needles had been removed from her back, and much of the initial effect had worn off, but she still felt unusually energetic. She didn’t even need to tell her friends to slow down for her.

“No, dude, you don’t get it.” Rain tapped her forehead. “If no other witches show up because they don’t know the phone number to call, then who’s gonna have to do all the tests? Who’s gonna make bank?” Rain swiped another row of numbers, then did a thumbs up with the same hand. “ _This_ girl.”

“That sounds like a _terrible_ idea,” Ximena said, shivering with disgust on Alice’s other side. “Shoving a bunch of untested chemicals into your body? You couldn’t _pay_ me to do that.”

“Well, you sure could pay _me_.” Rain tore off some more numbers. “We get it, Ximena, you’re a health nut.”

“And we get it, Rain!” Ximena shot back. “You’re a hippie!”

The two glowered at each other.

“And I’m the adorable helpless waif to round us out,” Alice cut in, pushing her scooter along a little faster to get between the two. “We’re just a bunch of walking, talking stereotypes, aren’t we? We should walk into a bar sometime.”

Rain kept glaring at Ximena, and Ximena kept glaring at Rain. And then Ximena snorted, and broke eye contact as she covered her face. A smile grew its way onto Rain’s face, slowly but surely. “You know what?” she said, throwing an arm around Alice and Ximena. “You dudes are all right.”

Alice laughed, and they kept going around the corner. Her ears picked up at the sound of an approaching conversation.

“Char, you don’t get more money by taking more phone numbers. It’s all the same test.”

“The thing is, Tiff,” said the slouching witch coming up the hallway, with two others in tow, “what happens if no one else shows up, because I took all the phone numbers? I get all the cash, that’s what. Easy money.”

“You have to drink experimental potions to get the money!” said a third witch, darker in complexion and yet somehow still visibly blanching. “That could be really dangerous!” As she walked, she poked her wand into a small handheld sphere and jiggled it around a bit. A second later, Alice heard a muffled explosion.

“Meh,” said the sloucher, and tore off another row of papers.

Tiffany, at the center of the group, looked forward from her friends, and stuttered mid-step. “Alice!” she said, and rushed forward, but then stopped halfway to her, looking up in surprise at Rain and Ximena on either side of her. “Oh, okay. You… you must be Alice’s roommates! It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She shoved her hand forward to shake.

Rain high-fived it. “Right on, dude. My name’s, like, Rain.”

As Tiffany looked uncertainly at her hand, the slouching witch moved forward, still leaning against the wall. Alice remembered now: Tiffany had called her ‘Char’. “Wait, let me guess,” Char said, and furrowed her brow with concentration. “Drizzle?”

“What?” Rain squinted. “No, dude, my name’s not _like_ rain. My name’s, like, _Rain_.”

“Oh, I getcha, I getcha.” Char frowned again. “Downpour.”

“Dude!”

But Char had noticed something else, and she slowly looked down to see Rain’s bulging pocket of torn papers. Just as Rain looked down to see Char’s similarly full pocket.

They locked gazes and glared at each other.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Ximena said, stepping forward decisively and grabbing Tiffany’s still-outstretched hand in a grip that was obviously painful in its tightness. “I’m Ximena Lopez. What’s your name?”

“Ouch—I’m Tiffany Vandergard, of course!” Tiffany pulled her hand out and beamed, but the beam flickered and died as she looked at Ximena’s face, still politely smiling. “You know, Tiffany? Alice’s best friend? Since childhood?”

Ximena’s smile, too, faded. Tiffany’s jaw sagged. “Has she seriously not—did you seriously not mention me?” she said, turning to Alice.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alice said. “It must have slipped my mind with all the _new friendmaking_ I was doing.” She grimaced.

Tiffany winced, like the grimace had been a poke to the face. “Alice, I’m sorry, I already said, but….”

“But nothing! You went and found a bunch of new friends? Well, guess what!” Alice wrapped her arms around Rain and Ximena. “I can find friends too! Ha!”

They stared each other down. Well, Alice stared Tiffany down. Tiffany just stared _down_ , looking at her shoes.

“Uh… hey! Check this out!” exclaimed the third witch with Tiffany. Mani, if Alice remembered correctly. She tapped a poster on the wall which was, surprisingly, _not_ related to potion testing. “The _Luna Nova Cup Broom Relay!_ That could be fun to watch together, and you two could catch up!”

“To _watch?_ ” Tiffany snorted. “They have a _broom_ race here?” She leaned in close and read bits and pieces of the poster out loud. “ _Teams of three, determined by room… sign-up by this Friday… winner gets the prestigious Luna Nova Cup!_ We are absolutely signing up for that! We’ll be a shoe-in!”

She turned back to Alice, forcing on another smile. “Do you think you’re up to signing up as well?”

 _Do you think you’re up to signing up_. Alice glowered, and clenched her fists. “I _am_ ,” she said. “And you know what? We’re not just going to race. We’re going to win! I’m going to beat you!”

At this, Tiffany’s smile froze. Rain glanced at Alice, then leaned forward and took Char by the shoulder, and whispered something Alice couldn’t hear. Char nodded.

“Well,” Tiffany finally said, “you’ve never beaten me in a broom race before, so I’m not really sure how you’re going to do that, but… good luck!” She waved. “We’ve got to get to our last class. See you later!”

“Goodbye!” Alice forced a wave of her own, and Tiffany turned around and departed with her friends. Her new _best friends_. “ _You’ve never beaten me before! Good luck!_ ” Alice said in a mocking, sing-song tone under her breath. “You condescending—”

“Yo, dude?” Rain said, frowning at her. “What you said about how you can make friends too… are we, like, only your friends so you can score points?”

Alice’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t trying to imply—” She took a breath, and then another few, feeling her heart speed up. Or maybe it had been fast for a while. That wasn’t good. “I’m sorry,” she said, leaning heavily on her handlebars. “I guess it did sound that way, and… I didn’t mean to. It’s just, Tiffany… she’s really _pissing me off_ right now!”

She took another breath, and felt her heartrate start to calm down. “Are you mad at me?” she said to Rain, and then turned around to look at Ximena, who seemed similarly concerned. “I’m sorry if you’re mad at me. I really don’t want that. Please still be friends,” she whispered.

Ximena smiled. “It’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes.”

Alice heaved a breath of relief. She scooted a little in front of them, then swung her scooter around so she could look at the two of them at once. “So are you okay with doing the race?”

“Oh, we’re _totally_ doing the race.” Rain leaned in. “I just made a bet with that Char dude. Whoever does better in the race gets all the phone numbers from the posters, and the loser doesn’t get to go and get any potion-testing money. So count me in.”

She raised her fist again, and Alice still didn’t know why. Rain frowned. “Fistbump, dude. It’s called a fistbump. Bump your fist.”

Alice raised her hand and bumped her fist against Rain’s, reflecting that this was probably the sort of thing she’d know if she hadn’t grown up around Tiffany. “All right,” Rain said, “let’s rock this race!”

“Great.” Alice turned to face just Ximena. “Are you in?”

“Absolutely!” Ximena grinned, then bumped Rain’s fist as well. “Are the two of you good at flying brooms?”

Rain nodded without hesitation, but Alice couldn’t be so casual. She _was_ good, or rather _had_ been, once. These days, with her illness, she didn’t really have the strength….

No. _These_ days, she had some of that strength back. Or could _get_ it back. She nodded.

“Great!” Ximena’s grin got wider. “Next question. Can you teach me how to fly a broom?”

* * *

“Mani,” Tiff said, “why are you hyperventilating?”

They were around the corner from Alice’s group, and Mani was sagging against a wall and turning blue. “Broom race?” she managed. “Are we really signing up for a _broom race?_ I can’t do that!”

“Mate, chill,” Char said, leaning in and resting a comforting hand on Mani’s shoulder. “You wanna learn to fly better, right? I can’t think of a better chance.”

“But—but—there’s no way I can learn in time, and… there’s no way we’re gonna win.”

“Oh, don’t worry about _that_.” Tiffany held a hand to her chest. “Not to sound _too_ arrogant, but I’m the witch with the Shooting Star. The fastest, most durable, and all around greatest broom of all time! I could win this race myself!”

Char squinted. “Tiff, you know what a relay is, right?”

“It’s an _exaggeration_.” Tiff growled. “Fine. Let’s get some practicing in.”

Alice would come around.


	8. Social Mobility (2)

It was rough going over the grass with a mobility scooter. Alice was surprised to find she was equal to it.

“I can’t believe you’ve never flown a broom before,” she said, walking out to the field at sunrise. A host of needles were stuck in her back—more of them than the previous day, since Rain had had more time to insert them this morning. Alice had woken up at the break of dawn before, but never with this much energy. She could do a jig!

Okay, maybe not a jig. But _something_.

“Well, you see…” Ximena frowned. “I’m forgetting the words. What’s the term for the fear of clinging to a thin stick of wood, hurtling above the ground at a hundred miles per hour, hundreds of feet in the air?”

“Acrophobia?” Rain said, yawning through the word so that it was barely decipherable.

“No, that’s not it.... Oh, I remember!” Ximena snapped her fingers. “Common sense.”

Alice groaned. “You’re not going to be hundreds of feet in the air. But if it helps….” As they approached the broom track, she pulled out her wand and pointed it at Ximena. “ _Oruihon Deance!_ ”

A puff of smoke burst into being around Ximena, and when it cleared she was decked out in kneepads, elbowpads, and a helmet. “Oh!” she said, looking down at herself. “That _does_ help, actually.”

“I thought so. It’s a useful spell: I learned it for myself when I was learning to fly with….” Alice grimaced. “Well, the point is, you’re safer now.”

They reached the track, and Alice took her broom from its holster on the side of her scooter. “Let’s start!” she said.

Ximena was a quick study. Her flight was stiff and she obviously wasn’t fully over her fear, judging by how she kept glancing down and swerving, but it wasn’t fifteen minutes before she understood the basics. She only tumbled a few times, too. “You don’t need to muscle it so much,” Rain called out, as Ximena zoomed past her. “Be the broom, dude!”

Well, Ximena wasn’t the broom, but she wasn’t half-bad, Alice thought.

Rain was up next, and Rain was _definitely_ the broom. She swept around the track with ease so practiced it hardly looked practiced at all. Alice looked at her and laughed: this was some of the best broomwork she’d ever seen!

_Second_ best. Her fist clenched again. “We’re going to _win_ ,” she whispered. “ _I’m_ going to win.”

“What was that?” Ximena asked, leaning in.

“Nothing!”

Ximena shrugged, and Rain swept back in for an easy landing next to them. “Simplifico,” she said, grinning. “I’ve been flying with my family since I was walking.”

“Well, Alice, you’re up!” Ximena almost patted her on the back, but seemed to notice the still-present needles. She settled for a friendly wave. “Good luck!”

“Good luck,” Alice repeated to herself. She stepped forward and held her broom in front of her. _First, you hold the broom._

The words came back to her. _Then, you pay respect to the broom._ She nodded, trying not to think about whose words these were.

_Then, get on. Picture yourself in the air, and cast the spell!_

“ _Tia freyre!_ ” she shouted, and rose. She was flying again—really flying!

She gasped, and willed herself to go forward. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster… and then slower again, for the turn. Before long she’d completed a lap of the circuit! She grinned, and impelled herself faster….

But her hand was slipping. All of a sudden she noticed it: the ache in her muscles, of keeping the correct posture over her broom. She grabbed at the handle as hard as she could, but the motion unbalanced her, and she spun for a moment before being flung.

She hit the ground hard on her front.

“Whoa, dude!” She glanced up behind her to see Rain flying her way; she coming to a halt next to Alice. “You okay? That was a messed-up fall.”

Alice forced herself to take deep breaths, even as she tasted blood in her mouth: she must have bitten her tongue. Then she felt wetness on her lips, and dragged her hand up to wipe beneath her nose, and saw blood there too.

She grinned. “I haven’t… flown that far… in _years_.” Alice pushed herself to a kneeling position, and looked up at Rain. “I’m gonna go again!”

“Oh, no you’re not.” This was Ximena: as Alice glanced to her right, she saw her approaching on foot, carrying Alice’s stroller. She set it down, then stuck out her hand for Alice to take. “I’m gonna make sure you didn’t break anything, and then I’m going to get you to the nurse so she can make double sure.”

Alice felt her brow contract. “But—”

“And _then_ ,” Ximena continued, “we’re going to come out here again tomorrow. And you’re going to work on exercises to train up your muscles. So you can stay on without falling off. Understand?”

Alice looked up a little longer, then nodded, and reached out to take Ximena’s hand.

Altogether, it had been a pretty great practice.

* * *

Mani took a deep breath, then—visibly shaking—she mounted her broom and said, “ _Tia Freyre_.”

Her broom hovered off the ground, and she smiled even as she shook. “All right,” she called out, “I’m going to try taking it slow—”

Her broom burst forward, and Mani crashed into the mattresses again, all the way on the other side of the field. The mattresses went flying like bowling pins in a strike. Thank goodness they’d brought so many.

“You know,” Char said to Tiff, as the two of them watched from the sidelines, “she would be an absolute _ripper_ if her section were a straightaway.”

“ _And_ if she didn’t need to pass the baton.”

“True.” Char yawned and sat down, then lay down in the grass. “You should probably go get her.”

“I got her the last five times.”

“Okay, and?”

Tiff sighed and trudged toward Mani. She’d sprinted the first time Mani had crashed, but on take six it was difficult to get excited. “Mani, are you conscious?” she said once she’d reached the pile of mattresses she’d set up to stop Mani. Said pile was now strewn far and wide from the impact, with Mani prone upon three of them. “Are you okay?”

“Mmmmnnnh,” Mani said.

“That doesn’t help me, Mani.”

“I don’t wanna do this,” Mani mumbled.

“You _have_ to!” Tiffany stuck out her hand for Mani to take, and Mani managed to grab it after a few tries. She let herself get pulled off the mattresses and to her feet, and then started walking under her own power. Tiffany pulled out her wand and, for the seventh time that day, set up the mattresses with wandwork.

“You’re very good at flying, yes? Do you have _any_ tips on how I can stop doing that?” Mani asked.

“None, sorry. You just seem to have too much magic.” Tiffany was reminded of a time when she’d been using the family computer, and had accidentally set the mouse sensitivity up far too high. One tiny movement, and the cursor went flying across the screen. She’d thought it was broken, but it had been a simple matter of changing the setting back. If only Mani had such a setting, she thought. “Maybe pour some more into the thing Professor Chariot gave you?”

“It doesn’t work, unless I exhaust myself so much I can’t fly at all. Can I at _least_ not go again for a while, and watch one of you practice? I don’t want to be any trouble,” Mani said, frowning, “but neither of you have gone _once_ yet. And I am not learning anything.”

“ _I_ still don’t have a broom,” Tiffany said. Since Professor Finnelan’s threat the previous day, the Shooting Star had been nowhere to be seen, and her old broom still needed repairs. “And good luck trying to get Char to practice.”

“Doesn’t the school have brooms?”

Tiffany winced. Her old broom had been perfection itself, and the Shooting Star, well, that was _beyond_ perfection. The idea of using the _school-issued_ broom… it would be like having a choice between caviar and filet mignon, and going to McDonald’s instead.

“You don’t want to do that?” Mani asked. When Tiffany shook her head, Mani sighed. “All right, then.”

She marched forward and stood over Char. “Char! Please get up and practice!”

“Meh.”

“Come _on!_ ” Mani stomped her foot. “We all need to practice or it’s not fair!”

“Ugh, fine. Help me up?” Char stuck out a hand, the other one holding her broom. Mani frowned, but pulled her up anyway. “All right, here I go.”

Char… wasn’t terrible. But that was damning with faint praise. She wobbled in the turns, she didn’t take the opportunity to gain speed in the straights, and her form was overall amateur. “Nailed it,” she said after completing three laps of the track. As her broom came to a stop, she oozed off it.

“Mm… no.” Tiff shook her head. “If ‘nailed it’ means what I think it means, then no, you did not.”

“Gimme a break.” Char was already lying on the grass. “Flying’s harder with one broom than two. _Way_ less stable.”

Tiff bit her tongue, because she was certain the alternative would be hurling a minute-long tirade about what an abuse to the whole _discipline_ of flight it was to use two brooms to string a hammock. So she bit her tongue instead.

Finally, she managed to say, _very_ kindly, “Wouldn’t you like to practice so you can improve?”

“Meh.” Char waved up at her. “You said you could win this all by yourself, right?”

“Well, _yes_ , I’m certain I could—”

“Then it’s fine.” Char’s hand flopped back to the ground. “I just gotta fly my bit, keep a decent pace, and let you do all the good flying. We’re good already.”

“I—but you—just because I _said_ that, it doesn’t….” Tiffany groaned. The logic was irrefutable: after all, it was _hers_. “Fine. Mani, it’s your turn again.”

“Oh, no! I’m going to get a concussion if this keeps up!” Mani pointed at Tiff. “You should find your broom, or just take one from the school! It’ll be as good as everyone else’s!”

“I can’t just _find_ it—it’s _the_ Shooting Star. It’ll come to me when it’s ready.” Tiffany glanced at the ground and mumbled, “I still don’t know why it came to me the first time… and,” she added, looking back up, “I _refuse_ to use one of those shoddy school-issued brooms.”

“Welp.” Char had her hands behind her head, and her hat over her face. “Looks like each of us has a great reason not to practice.”

“ _I_ have a good reason,” Mani said, huffing and crossing her arms. “The two of you are just being… dumb!”

Tiff turned the other way. “ _I_ was going to say something similar!”

“Okay, so each of us has a great reason not to practice and the other two are being dumb. Got it.” Char yawned, and added, “Don’t wait for me.” Six seconds later, the snoring started.

Tiff sighed and wandered away, toward the school. After a few seconds she sighed, and put her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “ _Shooting Star?_ ” she called out, as if shouting for a lost pet. “ _Where are you, Shooting Star?_ ”

What the heck, right? She had nothing to lose but her steadily-eroding dignity.

* * *

Akko sat in the stands, pouting as she watching the first-years’ first day of broom class. To her side was a stack of textbooks, and one was on her lap: she glanced down at it periodically.

“What’s the glum look for?” said Lotte’s voice right next to her. Akko glanced up and saw her friend edging closer on the stands.

“Hi, Lotte.” Akko sighed. “Professor Nelson doesn’t want my help with training the first-years. Apparently she’s ‘legally liable if I get someone’s spine broken’,” she said, adding the air-quotes with her fingers. “It’s a lot of kids to keep track of! She could use the help!”

She waited a second, then added, “Also, she got mad when I asked whether Nelson was her first or last name.”

“Isn’t Nelson a boy’s name when it comes first?” Lotte asked.

“That’s what I was thinking… but we all say ‘Professor Chariot’ and ‘Professor Croix’, right? Not ‘Professor du Nord’ or ‘Professor Meridies’?” Akko shrugged. “Anyway, she forbade me from coming near any of her classes ever again, unless I was in them. So I kept walking until she stopped glaring at me.” She looked down at the field, where Professor Nelson was instructing a short-haired witch who seemed barely able to hold her broom. That had to be Alice, if she remembered correctly from the other day.

“Okay.” Lotte scooched a little closer, but not by much: the pile of textbooks was still between her and Akko. “What are you doing the rest of the day?”

“Oh!” Akko beamed, squinting at the field. There was Tiffany, flying laps on a school-issued broom with the most defeated expression imaginable on her face. “What I’m doing… well, there’s classes after my break is over, and then I’ve got schoolwork, then I’ve got to help one of the first-years with Numerology homework—I think her name is Rain, which doesn’t sound like a real name but whatever—and then… dinner with Diana and bed, I guess.”

“Oh.” Lotte chanced a smile. “So you’ll be coming back to the room?”

“Well, I’ll probably just spend the night with Diana again….” Akko glanced over the textbooks, saw Lotte’s radiant blush, and realized what she’d just said. “Not like that! We just cuddle! I’m not _nearly_ ready for that yet!”

Lotte’s cheeks were puffed up with trapped air, and her eyes were screwed up tight behind her half-framed glasses. Akko looked up at the sky, tapping at the air with her finger as she recalled tomorrow’s activities. “Tomorrow it’s wake up, breakfast with Diana, class, see if the first-years need flight help while Professor Nelson’s not looking—”

“ _Sucy and I don’t like that you’re doing this!_ ” Lotte burst out. She spoke so fast that the words were almost one syllable.

Akko blinked a few times, and then looked at her. “What? What’s ‘this’?”

“ _All_ of this.” Lotte took a deep breath. “Between Diana and this whole ‘mentoring the first-years’ thing, it’s like you’re only hanging out with us when it’s time to sleep. Sometimes, not even then! I feel like this is the first time I’ve gotten to really _talk_ to you since the school year started, and it’s been days!” She shook her head, almost angrily. “And Sucy won’t say it, but I know she feels the same way. We… we miss you.”

“What?” Akko laughed. “No, we still spend plenty of time together! Like…. Actually, what about the time we….” The smile faded to a neutral expression, like summer turning to autumn, before finally resolving into a crestfallen winter. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say _anything_!” Lotte took a moment to compose herself, then sighed. “Let’s just talk about… anything. Like… did you hear about the twist in the latest Nightfall book? Barbara and I couldn’t believe it, but it’s brilliant when you think about it! It turns out that due to time travel,” she said, leaning forward and smiling, “Belle is secretly her own—”

A bell rang on campus, and the fliers all looked toward the tower. So did Akko, and a moment later, she gasped. “I’ve got class in five minutes!” She gathered up all her textbooks in both arms and bolted. “See you later, Lotte!”

“I hope so,” Lotte called out behind her.

* * *

‘ _They’re going to win!_ ”

Tiff and Mani walked toward the training field, and Tiff’s voice was strained to breaking point. To Tiff’s eternal shame, she was holding a _school-issued_ broom in one hand: the other was levitating Mani’s stack of mattresses behind them. “They’ve been getting up early to train,” she said, “and doing it again in the afternoons, and Alice can _fly_ now, _gosh_ knows how that’s possible—pardon my potty mouth—and the other two are _really_ good! And _we’ve_ got _one_ person who can fly well, and I don’t even have my _real_ broom!

“And they’re going to _win!_ ” Tiff chucked her school-issued broom on the ground, then realized what she’d done and picked it up off the ground, with a hurried, “Sorry!” All brooms were precious, even terrible mass-produced ones.

“You don’t _know_ they’re going to win,” Mani said, her voice bright.

“Really?”

“Yes! Someone else could beat them _and_ us!” Mani laughed. “That’s _black_ humor, right? Char’s been teaching me. Where is she, anyway?”

“ _Truant_ again.” Tiff groaned. “I’m surprised she bothers getting up for _class_.”

The grass was crisp under their boots, but before long they were on the harder surface of the flying track instead. It was unclear why it had to be hard if no one was running on it (except perhaps Alice’s new friend): perhaps it was to deter crashing.

Speaking of which. “Okay,” Tiffany said, “you and I are going to fly together this time. Hopefully, _hopefully_ , I can help fix you.”

“Fix me?”

“Fix your issue.”

“Oh. How?”

“Well… I can react fast enough to grab you, or use magic to stop you, if you lose control.”

Mani stared at her, levelly but without even the slightest bit of confidence.

“But let’s set up the mattresses in case,” Tiff said, waving her wand. The mattresses flew into place. “All right.” Tiff hopped onto her broom and entered the air. “Go whenever, and I promise, I’ll—”

Without breaking eye contact, Mani went.

“Please don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Mani mumbled, as Tiffany extricated her from one of the mattresses.

“Sorry! I really thought I had you! Sorry!” Tiffany was cringing the whole time.

“Can you _please_ practice on your own?” Mani asked, as they returned unsteadily to the track. “Maybe I can watch you, and… pick up tips! As opposed to picking up concussions,” she added bitterly.

Tiff sighed, but there was really no reason to put it off any longer. She’d already lowered herself to using this broom in flight class—and indeed lowered herself to going to _flight class_ , as though she needed it—but this was in her own time. It felt different, somehow. “ _Tia freyre_ ,” she muttered.

“Stop!”

Tiff and Mani both looked over at the approaching figure. It was Char in her hammock, holding a third broom above her head. “Did some searching,” Char said, gliding closer. “Asked around. This is the best broom the school’s got. Tiff, try it.”

Tiffany wasn’t sure she liked the way that last sentence ended in a giggle. Nevertheless she dismounted her broom, strode forward, and accepted the one Char was holding. “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. “ _Tia freyre!_ ”

The broom went up. But it did so in the fashion of a hundred-year-old elevator, with many a creak and groan. Tiffany was airborne within fifteen seconds. “What’s going on?” she asked, leering.

“Don’t worry about it. Try it out.” Char flapped a hand.

“All right….” Tiffany leaned forward. The broom didn’t, and Tiffany fell over the front and flat on her face, her leg still awkwardly upon the broom. “Ow! Hey!”

She pushed herself up and looked at the broom, which was moving forward… then again, technically continents were moving too. She grabbed it and yanked at it, but she must have looked like a mime trying to pull a balloon. “Where did you _get_ this?” Tiff yelled, hauling on it. “And why did you say this is the best broom ever? That’s a lame joke!”

“No, it’s not. Mani, you’ve been watching?”

Tiff blinked, and glanced at Mani, who looked confused… at first. Then light dawned on her face. “I think I see now!” she said, and bounded forward toward the broom. “Please let go, Tiff!”

“Wha?” Tiff let go anyway, and Mani took the broom and spun it around easily before mounting it. She pointed it at the mattresses, leaned forward, and….

She was off! But not quite like a shot. “Whoa!” she said, and pulled back, and screeched to a stop just before the mattresses. “Yes! This is _amazing!_ ”

“The broom was gonna get chucked out,” Char said, as Tiffany stared. “Fibers misaligned or something, I dunno. Too slow for anyone to ride. I figure, Mani rides too fast, maybe they’d kinda cancel.” She lifted her hat and winked, eyes twinkling. “I said it was the best broom ever. Never said it was the best for _you_.”

Tiffany frowned. “This doesn’t _fix_ her problem.”

“We’ve got, like, two days before this relay race. Whatever problem Mani’s got, I don’t think we can fix it by then.”

“ _I_ don’t like it.”

“Well, I do. So does Mani. Outvoted, mate.”

Tiffany sighed, but Mani was indeed jumping for joy, and aimed a kick at the mattresses, knocking them over like dominos. “ _Fine_ ,” she said. “I don’t suppose you also found a broom that was the equal of the Shooting Star, about to be thrown away?”

“Well, I didn’t look that hard.” Char yawned. “Lemme know when you need me.”

Tiffany sighed, and pulled a ring from within her sleeve. “That’s right now. We need to start practicing baton passes.”

“Ugh. _Effort_.”

“I know, Char. I know.” But Tiff looked out, a smile coming to her face. She could beat Alice. She could _win_.

If she could find her broom.

* * *

Homework was hard.

This was a general statement as part of Akko’s life, but it usually wasn’t this true. Sitting in the library, she stared at a passage on the effect of carbonation in potions, and felt like she’d read it before.

_Sucy and I don’t like that you’re doing this!_

Oh, silly her. That was where she’d read it before—five seconds earlier. She’d just reread the same sentence several times without noticing.

_We miss you_.

“Can’t _focus!_ ” she yelled, sweeping the book off the desk in a dramatic motion—then gasping, and diving for it before it could slam on the ground in the quiet library. “Dang, you’re good, Akko,” she whispered to herself.

But she wasn’t. She wasn’t good. A _good_ witch wouldn’t be so helpless toward a problem as simple as this one: how to keep up a friendship with her own _roommates_. How to stop it from disappearing.

If only there was someone she knew who’d had the same problem.

* * *

“Professor Chariot! I need to talk to you!”

Akko’s banging on her teacher’s door was, thankfully, answered without much delay. “Come on, Akko,” said the voice from inside.

She opened the door and bounded in. “Hi, Professor Chariot! Hi, Alcor!” she said, bouncing over to pet the bird on his head. She’d learned he liked head scritches.

It was so strange: almost nothing looked different since the first times she’d been in here, the room she’d come to know so well. The bookshelves were still haphazardly stuffed with books, the sofa was still a little cluttered, and globes on stands still littered the floorspace: in short, it looked comfortably lived in. The only difference was that the smiling, tracksuit-wearing teacher who greeted her from the desk had red hair instead of blue.

One small change. And then again, one _giant_ change.

“Hello, Akko,” Chariot said. She glistened slightly with sweat: perhaps she’d come back from a jog, as suggested by her tracksuit. “Pull up a chair. Is something wrong?”

“I’ve got a really big problem,” Akko said, flopping into the chair that Chariot offered. “ _Really_ big.”

Chariot’s hand went to her mouth. “Are you having trouble with a class? Do you need extra help? I can arrange to get you extra help if you need—”

Akko shook her head hard. “Not _that_ kind of big.”

“Sorry,” Chariot said, just as quickly. “I shouldn’t have assumed. So what is it?”

Akko scrunched up her witch’s robe in her fists. “Do you remember how you used to be really good friends with Professor Croix, back in school? And how you grew apart?”

Chariot frowned. “Er… yes?”

“And then you got back to being friends, but the magic show thing and the Shiny Rod thing happened and you were apart again, and then you were kinda enemies last year?”

“Akko, are you going somewhere with—”

“Lotte and Sucy aren’t talking to me anymore,” Akko said, “and it’s my fault. And I don’t know how to stop it.”

Chariot was silent.

“I know you and Croix are friends again now, and I would really like it if you could tell me how. Because Lotte says they don’t see me as much anymore thanks to Diana and the mentoring thing, and… she’s right, I feel like I don’t have any _time_ between that and classes and everything else, and they’re just kind of doing their own thing, and….” She looked up and sniffed. “Is this just one of those things that happens as you get older? You lose touch with the people you care about, and you can’t stop it?”

Chariot smiled. “I think I understand. Akko, once upon a time, you inherited the Shiny Rod from me… and now I think it’s time for you to inherit another powerful tool.”

Akko gasped. “Really? What is it? Is it some kind of time-turn-backer? Something that can clone me?”

Chariot turned to her desk and picked up a calendar, on which had been scribbled a meticulous schedule.

Akko’s face fell.

“Sorry,” Chariot said, giggling behind her hand. “I was a performer, after all. This sort of setup and payoff is my thing. But it’s _tremendously_ helpful.”

“It’s just a schedule.”

“This one’s special.” Chariot leaned closer and tapped a light-purple _Cx_ that was written on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week, with a time late in the afternoon associated with each one. “You see that?”

“Ooh, what does it mean? Cx… I think in English, ‘x’ means crossing? Do you moonlight as a crossing guard?” Akko asked, eyes shining.

Chariot stared for a moment, then laughed. “It’s been a long, dull summer break without your leaps of logic, Akko. But think a little closer to what we were talking about.”

Akko rewound the conversation in her head. Crossing guard—schedules—what came before that, something about the Shiny Rod, and Sucy, and poisons, and… not poisons, Sucy and Lotte, and….

“Croix,” she said. “Cx stands for Croix. That’s Croix time?”

“Every week,” Chariot said, setting the schedule down. “Three times a week, Croix and I make time to do something. Practice some difficult magic. Work on a crossword. Eat together… well, not _very_ together, with her globetrotting, but still. Sometimes we just chat. And I _always_ make it, even if I have to drop everything else. So does she.”

“You have to _schedule_ time for your best friend?” Akko grimaced. “That’s… so lame.”

“Maybe it would be better if I didn’t have to.” Chariot shrugged. “But I do. And it works. I think we’re closer than we’ve been in years, and honestly?” She smiled. “I couldn’t be happier.”

“Wait, wait wait. I think I get it. You’re telling me….” Akko scrunched up her face real good. “You’re saying I have to _schedule_ time to have fun with the people I actually _live_ with? I don’t need to do that!”

Chariot kept smiling. Eventually Akko looked down at her lap and muttered, “But not doing it hasn’t really helped me either…. But it’s weird!” She looked up. “Friendship shouldn’t be, like… like a chore! It shouldn’t be something you have to make time for, it should be something that just happens! Having to do it this way….” She took a breath. “It feels fake. You know?”

“Akko, whether you think of it as a chore is up to you.” Chariot stood. “My advice is to think of it more like… a skill. Something you can get good at, something you can practice. You know about that, right?”

“I guess….”

“And, if that doesn’t help? Think of it as a promise you keep.”

Akko looked up.

“I know it’s hard,” Chariot said, stepping forward. “You’ve probably never been in this position before, and it’s hard, and it makes you feel powerless…. But I promise you. If this friendship is worth keeping, you can make time for it. You can fight for it. Come here.”

Akko stood up and walked into Chariot’s open arms. “Thanks, Professor,” she said into Chariot’s side.

“Any time, Akko.”

They held each other for a few seconds more. Then Akko pulled away. Talking with Chariot always felt like a recharge: she felt so full of life and purpose now. “Seriously, thanks! You’re the best teacher ever!”

Chariot laughed, but looked off to the side. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“All right! I’ve gotta go talk to them! Bye!”

With that, Akko ran through the door, and down the stairs, and came to a dead halt halfway. She turned around, sprinted back up, and said, “Hey, Professor?”

Chariot, who had just been sitting down, jumped in her seat. “Er! Yes?”

“I mean it. You’re the best teacher ever.” As Chariot blushed, Akko frowned. “Please just say ‘thank you’.”

“Thank… thank you.” The words came out forced, but that was all right as long as they came out.

Akko beamed, shouted, “See you later!”, and ran down the stairs again.

* * *

Where _were_ they?

She’d checked the dorms, and Lotte and Sucy weren’t there. She’d checked the lunch room, and they weren’t there. She’d checked the dorms again!

Still nothing.

Akko panted, leaning heavily against the wall. Hopefully she didn’t have to check the dorms _again_ again. Where else could they be at this time of day….

The track! Of course! She heaved her heaving body up and made for the field, but stopped before rounding a corner as she heard some familiar voices. “For the last time,” Tiff said around the corner, “ _no_.”

“We’d do better.”

“I’ve read the rules. Each witch is allowed _a_ broom. ‘A’ means _one_. Your hammock would be disqualified immediately.”

“Meh. I tried.” She heard the sound of someone, presumably Char, getting up to walk away.

“Wait!” This was Tiff’s voice again, and it sounded less clipped this time. “Can I talk to you about something else?”

“Sure. Not going anywhere fast.”

“It’s… you know Alice, right?”

“Mm. Your childhood friend. The one who’s kind of a… remember how I was gonna call you Fanny, because you’re a butt?”

“I am _not_ a butt! You took that back!”

“Whatever. The point is, that’s not actually the part of anatomy that ‘fanny’ means, but big sis Akko was there and I didn’t want to swear. And I’m glad that I saved the name for later, because Alice is a right—”

Akko didn’t know this word, and resolved to look it up later. Did it start with a C, or a K? “Kuh,” she whispered, sounding it out. “Ent.”

Tiffany gasped: _she_ seemed to know what it meant. “You can’t say that! That’s my _best friend_ —”

“She’s so needy she ran away when she saw you with new mates, and then right away got new besties of her own. We’ve got an excuse, what with how we almost died and all. She doesn’t. Do you think you’re, like, betraying her or something?”

Tiffany was quiet. Akko imagined a nod.

“Way I see it, it’s the other way round.” Akko heard slow footsteps departing the scene, and the sound of feet being dragged: thankfully in the opposite direction from her corner. “She’s wrong. Let her apologize to you. But don’t force it.”

Akko shoved a hand in her mouth to stop herself from crying out. That was the _worst_ advice—it _had_ to be if it contradicted Chariot’s advice about fighting for friendship—that she’d ever heard. But she managed to remain silent, as Char’s footsteps slowly faded away.

Tiff did not. A sliding sound came from her, followed by a mild thump, as she probably slid down the wall while leaning against it and sat on the floor. Akko could hear her frustration in the long, sucking breaths she took.

Akko backed up, as quietly as possible, halfway down the hallway. Then she walked forward at a jaunty step, and turned right, and gasped. “Hi, Tiff! What are you doing here?”

Tiff glanced up at her. “Sitting.”

“That’s cool! You’re doing a great job!” Akko cursed at herself inwardly, using the new probably-a-curse word she’d just learned. _You’re doing a great job?_ Still, it wasn’t wrong: Tiffany glowered resolutely down at the floor, and looked ready to spend the rest of the day rooted to that spot. “Anyway,” Akko said, “is there anything you need to talk about? You look kind of… bothered.”

“I am _not_ bothered.” Tiff took a deep breath and made a valiant, failed effort to recompose her features. Akko was reminded of a time when she’d tried to solve a Rubik’s Cube of Lotte’s, gotten it more disordered instead, and thrown it on the floor: Tiff looked angrier with her mouth in a line than she did with it in a frown. “But thank you for your attention.”

“No problem! I am great at attention! Just let me know if you need anything.” She started walking away as slowly as possible. “You’ve got my phone number, right?”

“Right.”

“Bye!”

“Bye.”

“I’m really going!” Akko went a little farther. Just a bit more, and she’d well and truly have to leave Tiff alone in her time of need—

“Wait!”

_There_ was the cue. Akko froze mid-step, then spun around. “Yes?”

“I do actually have something to ask you.”

“Oh?” Akko queued up the advice in her head: don’t push Alice away, you two were friends since childhood, there’s no reason a week at a new school should change that, and love and friendship can win the day—

“How did you tame the Shooting Star?”

Akko’s train of thought crashed. “What?”

“I can’t find it _anywhere_ , and it’s been days!” Tiff stood rudely to her feet, scraping against the wall. “I don’t know if it’s even _around_ —it could literally be halfway around the world by now. By two days ago! And I _need_ it if I wanna make sure I beat—make sure I win the relay race,” she corrected. “The school brooms aren’t good for me, and my _old_ broom is still out being repaired.”

“Uh,” Akko said. “Can you repeat some of that?”

Tiffany glared at her, and then said in a tone of great deliberation, “Why did the Shooting Star choose you? Because I don’t know why it chose me.”

Akko scratched her neck. “Well, it’s more like I chose it.”

Tiffany squinted. “No, I saw the footage! You were falling, and—”

“Not then! Way before. This was a different thing.” Akko leaned in. “Remember how I told you the Shooting Star was chained up in a pawn shop?” She saw Tiff’s hands balling into fists at the reminder, and pressed on, “Well, that was about this time last year, at the relay race. And one of my friends went and, uh… stole the Shooting Star. Unsuccessfully. She wasn’t able to ride it, it flung her off. And it escaped and, uh… knocked my broom out from under me? It’s not big on other brooms for some reason.”

“But you _were_ able to ride it? How?”

“I fired myself out of a cannon and caught it and tied myself to it with the chain.”

Tiff blinked.

“I bet you think that sounds really horrible,” Akko said, scratching her neck again, “but… I mean, it’s a broom, I don’t know it _that_ well. But I think that real determination is the only thing it respects. And I _really_ wanted to win that race.” She laughed. “Got a photo finish, too! But Diana took the win, and I came in second.”

Tiffany was losing focus, Akko realized, which meant Akko must have been getting off track. “The _point_ is. The _point_ is… I’ve seen you. I know you’re determined. Why aren’t you using that?”

Tiffany didn’t respond here either, and Akko forced herself to stop talking. “So,” Tiff finally said, “what’s your actual advice?”

“Have you been looking for it?”

“I’ve been calling for it….”

“Then go out and _look_ for it.” Akko flashed a smile. “Oh, and as some general race-winning advice?” She leaned in and grabbed Tiff’s shoulders, and looked her real hard in the eye. “Cheat like _hell_.”

“Wha.”

“I shot myself out of a cannon and couldn’t fly under my own power. I placed _second_. As long as you make the ring passes where you should, _no one cares_. So cheat like there’s no tomorrow.”

Akko stood up. She still had Sucy and Lotte to find. “I hope that helps! I’m rooting for you!”

For the second time that day, she turned and ran away. For the second time that day, she stopped partway and doubled back, where Tiffany seemed to be having a tough time digesting the advice. “Hey,” Akko said, “you know that if there’s _anything_ else you wanna talk about, I’m here, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, gotta go. Find that broom! Cheat a lot! Rooting for you!”

Akko stopped running once she was around another corner and out of Tiff’s sight, and not for lack of breath. She sighed…. There was nothing she could do if Tiff didn’t want to talk to her about this Alice business. And she wasn’t sure she had the time to help, anyway.

Not when she had a friendship or two of her own to repair.


	9. Social Mobility (3)

The race couldn’t have happened on a nicer day.

Well, “nice” was a matter of perspective: it certainly couldn’t have happened on a _brighter_ one. Tiffany glowered at the sky through puffy eyes, wishing there could be more clouds and less glare.

She’d spent all last _night_ searching for the darn broom! She’d scoured the grounds of the academy, taking care not to be seen in case it was disallowed to be flying after dark—she wasn’t sure—and hadn’t seen a hint of red. She’d checked the internet to see if anyone had spotted it worldwide—in which case she’d have been willing to take a leyline halfway around the world—and to no avail.

Maybe that meant the Shooting Star was still on the grounds, but this was a broom that could fly around the world in a day. It could be sunning itself in Tahiti for all she knew.

She glanced down at her school-issued broom with the black tassel around it and grumbled, as Professor Nelson finished explaining the rules in front of her: she _still_ didn’t have the hang of this broom. The balance was all wrong. If only….

“All right,” Nelson bellowed, “racers to your places!”

Why _had_ the Shooting Star left? Come to think of it, a little threat like Professor Finnelan’s didn’t seem like enough: it could surely dodge whatever she could throw at it, right? That didn’t seem like reason enough to bail for almost a week.

“Yo, Tiff? You going?”

Tiffany blinked, and turned back to Char, who held her ‘broom’. Which was to say she held two brooms, with the hammock between them, held closely enough together that they looked like a single entity. Tiffany might have given into Akko’s advice about ‘cheating like hell’, but she felt she needed to insist on that level of cover-up.

“Sorry,” Tiff said, looking at Char and then past her to where Mani was standing, holding _her_ broom and covered in bandaids. Even with the new broomstick, Mani didn’t exactly have full control: she rode hard and crashed often. “I was thinking about something else.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Char clapped her on the shoulder. “If you’re as good at flying as you keep saying, this’ll be a breeze. But we gotta get going.”

“All right. _Tia freyre_ ,” Tiff muttered.

Char repeated it, and the two of them went airborne, but Mani said nothing. “Mani?” Tiff asked.

Mani smiled, like a stress fracture in her face. “How about I just jog over there instead.”

“Better run quick,” Char said.

Tiff glanced forward and saw Alice’s team flying toward the starting lines. She grimaced.

Why did the Shooting Star leave?

* * *

“ _There_ you are!”

Lotte and Sucy, several rows down from the top of the stands, turned around. Akko panted as she trudged down the stands from the top, where the second-and-third year students were watching the beginning of the broom race.

“Where,” Akko panted, “have you been?” She plunked down heavily beside her friends. Lotte stared intently back, while Sucy just maintained her usual dull-eyed look. “I’ve been looking all _over_ for you,” Akko said. “All day yesterday and today! What were you doing?”

“Setting up for potion testing.”

“Trying to talk Sucy out of potion testing.”

“Okay, that’s fair.” Akko sighed. “I guess I can’t complain about not being able to find _you_ , after… look, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been around much. It’s hard to find time! But I’ve decided to make it up to you,” she finished, pulling a sheet of paper from her pocket.

Lotte took it and read it. “Is this… a registration form for the second-years’ relay race? Did you sign us up _again_ without telling us?”

“I can cancel if you don’t want to!” Akko waved her hands frantically, placatingly. “I just thought it would be some real nice us-time! I know it’s kinda last minute, and I know we don’t get a cool photo next to Chariot’s if we win, and you don’t get a poison from Professor Lukić, but—”

Sucy raised a finger to Akko’s lips. “Do we still get to cheat?” she said.

Akko stared at the finger, cross-eyed. Then she grinned. “We’re gonna cheat our _hearts_ out.”

Sucy was quiet for a minute, and looked out at the field—or rather at the screen hovering in front of it. Last year, only a radio had been present to commentate the parts of the race the bleachers couldn’t see, but this time, Professor Croix had set up camera-droids and this screen.

Akko was beginning to worry that this screen would be the only way she’d see any races this year, just when Sucy thrust a fist out. “I’m in.”

Akko put her fist on it as well. Then she looked up at Lotte. “I promise I’m gonna make a lot more time for you guys. I’ve even got it on a schedule. Are you willing to help?”

Lotte sighed, then put her hand in too. “You know I’m always ready to help.”

“All right! One, two, three!” Akko, Sucy, and Lotte thrust their hands down twice, then threw them skyward on the third beat—just in time for Akko to surge forward and grab them both in a hug. “You two are the _best!_ ”

“Thanks,” Lotte said. Sucy just grunted, but Akko knew she was happy about it. “But,” Lotte continued, “how long until the second year relay race?”

“Oh, about twenty minutes,” Akko said. “Why?”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Oh,” Akko said, “we’ve got to get our brooms. I didn’t think this through.”

“Just like old times.” Sucy stood and glided down the stands. “I’ll get some cheat-worthy potions. You two can get our brooms.”

Akko beamed. “All right! Come on, Lotte!” Without further ceremony she grabbed Lotte’s wrist and dragged her behind as she ran down.

“Akko, slow down!”

_Just_ like old times.

* * *

Tiff reached the final starting line, the one for the third leg of the race, and dismounted on the tower.

Alice was already there.

Tiffany shied away, squinting at her. Alice sat on the precipice unlike the other standing witches, but she was sitting _upright_. That was more energy than Tiff had seen from her in six years. Not to mention, there were a bunch of needles sticking out of her back: also different from six years ago.

_She’s in the wrong. Wait for her to apologize._

Tiff shook her head. If she wasn’t going to be delicate about looking for this broom, she wasn’t going to be delicate about this either. She bounded forward and sat next to Alice, and looked at her, and saw Alice glance her way for a moment—just long enough to see who it was—then look decisively away.

“Hey,” Tiff said, “have you seen a red broom anywhere? Flies itself, fiercely independent, answers to ‘Shooting Star’?”

Her words were jovial. Alice’s reply was nonexistent.

“Um. Let me know if you do, okay? It’s kind of important to me.”

More nothing from Alice, except perhaps an inclination of the eyebrow Tiff could see.

“It’s really great to see you weren’t sick again. I hope it holds out for the race—”

“Do you?” Alice muttered.

Tiffany blinked a few times. “Do I what? Do I hope it holds out? Of course I do.”

“Do you remember when we were kids, and I was in the hospital the first time?” Alice’s voice kept its low, biting tone. “And you made a promise you’d find a way to help me?”

“Yes! I spent _hours_ , _days_ in the library, looking up stuff—”

“Why did you lie?”

Tiff’s jaw went slack.

“I _just_ met Rain and Ximena, and they’ve already _helped_ me more than you ever did. Because you weren’t trying to _help_ me, you were trying to _fix_ me. Like I’m just a problem you have.”

“What?” Tiff felt cold in her chest. “Alice, what are you… of course not! Of course I don’t think you’re a problem! I was trying to fix the problem _you_ have!”

“Well, maybe it _can’t_ be fixed!” Alice finally rounded on her, making eye contact. “And maybe being _fixed_ wasn’t what I needed! And you were too _stupid_ to realize what I _did_ need, which was someone who wasn’t going to leave me behind!”

“Leave you—” Tiff felt her face roil with anger, and went to her feet. “You left _me_ behind! I’m the one who’s been trying to say sorry, I’ve been trying to talk to you, and you just went and found new friends to _spite_ me! I’m _trying_ , Alice, but you just don’t care!”

“You’re right! I don’t!” Alice went to her feet as well.

“Then I guess we’re done here!”

“Obviously!”

“Good!” Tiffany spun around and walked away. Behind her, the sound of footsteps told her Alice was doing the same. “And for the record,” Tiffany yelled, “I’m gonna kick your butt! You selfish _jerk!_ ”

“Good _luck!_ ”

Char was right. Alice really _was_ a fanny.

Tiff _still_ didn’t know where that broom was.

“Welcome, boys and girls!” said a voice over the trees: an enthusiastic announcer witch. “Or, really, just girls! Welcome to the one-thousand, three hundred and thirty-fourth annual Luna Nova Cup Broom Relay! Up first is the highly-anticipated first competition for the first years! A chance for our freshwitches to show their stuff! Winner gets her photo enshrined for eternity!”

A quartet of disc-shaped robots rose into the air and formed a rectangle, and light shone from each one’s inside corner. The rectangle became a screen, and on that screen was an aerial view of the starting line.

“Last year,” the announcer continued, “we all watched an incredible competition with more twists, turns, and arguable-to-definite rule-breaking than we’ve ever seen before! Will _this_ year’s witches meet that high, and _low_ , standard? Let’s find out!”

Tiff tensed, and a red light flashed out over the field. The group of witches on the screen tensed as well.

“On your mark! Get set!”

The light went to yellow, and then—

“ _Go!_ ”

To green.

The witches were off like a salvo.

* * *

Char looked to either side, then hopped off her brooms long enough to spread them apart.

This was _way_ better. She plopped back on her hammock and sighed with relief, and sped forward with a renewed pace. It wasn't fast enough, though: the other half-dozen teams were all jockeying for position, and she was at the back of the pack.

She slipped her hand under herself and extended her wand. _Cheat like hell_ , huh?

“Nice day out!” she called out to the other racers.

One of the other witches looked back, and her eyes widened. “Hey! What kind of broom is that?”

“Pretty sweet, huh? Bet you wish you were lying down too, huh?” Char wiggled her wand back and forth, speaking in a dull tone. “Wish you could just be in bed, falling asleep, nice and calm… and relaxed… and limp….”

The other witch's eyes weren't so wide anymore. Her eyelids were drooping, and she wasn't the only one.

“So calm and relaxed and carefree, you could just doze the rest of the day away….”

Witches were falling limp, and shortly thereafter falling off their brooms. Most of them didn't even wake upon impact. “Hey,” said one, not conscious enough to be indignant.

“And almost all the witches have tumbled off their brooms!” yelled the announcer. “What, were they all up late practicing? Wake up, witches!”

Char smiled and pulled her hand from behind her back, resting it under her head. Easy as pie.

Almost. One witch was left: a tanned, muscular girl who was stiff on her broom and staring forward. This was Ximena, right? “Be the broom,” she muttered, “be the broom, be the broom….”

Too focused on the task at hand. She probably hadn't noticed the Sleep Aid spell, much less been affected by it.

Char shrugged. Well, she'd tried. It was Mani’s problem now.

* * *

“And they're coming into the first handoff!”

Mani tensed and looked behind her. Two witches were coming up from the rear: one was Ximena, but the other was a bit more recumbent and further behind. Char.

With a groan, Mani muttered the magic words and rose. Keeping Char in her sights, she waited until the hammock was past her, then eased forward as slowly as she could.

Not slowly at all, in other words.

She really wished she'd brought goggles.

“What are you doing?” she shouted as Char sped up to keep pace. “I thought you weren't supposed to—”

Char shoved the ring at her. “Worry later. Grab now.”

They were approaching the end of the handoff zone. Mani sighed, but swiped the ring.

Then she crashed.

“And Imani bint Abdallah al Kairouani, I hope I pronounced that right, is down on the ground! That leaves Rain Williams, improving on an easy lead!”

Mani grunted and looked up, shaking with discomfort. Rain glided through the air in front of her with the ease that trapeze artists aspired to, and disappeared around a curve. If this were a straight shot, she'd catch the girl easily, but….

Mani pointed her broom toward the longest treeless straight stretch of the curve, jumped up, and flew.

Into a tree.

* * *

Tiffany winced several times in succession. Mani, visible on the floating screen, kept crashing into trees. It was like watching a reenactment of a Daffy Duck cartoon.

“And, coasting into the second and final handoff zone, it's none other than the zippy hippie, Rain Williams!”

Rain pulled in, but Mani wasn't even in sight yet except for onscreen. Alice took the ring from her, followed by a deep breath. Then she stood. “Thanks, Rain! We're gonna win for sure!”

She kicked off the parapet and flew away, sparing a glance in Tiff's direction as she went. A withering glance, and one that was quickly departing: she flew faster than Tiff would have guessed possible.

“You're despicable,” Tiff muttered.

“What'd I do, dude?”

“Not you.”

“Oh, okay.” Rain took out a needle and fiddled it between her fingers. “Good luck on the final stretch.”

“Oh… thanks?” Tiffany turned around, but the sight of Mani approaching fast cut her off. “Got to go!”

She took a running start and jumped over the edge, landing on her broom in mid-air. It was the optimal way to take off with maximum speed. Considering Mani’s velocity issues, she hoped it would be enough.

“ _Take it!_ ” Mani screamed, her arm extended like a train with a mailbag on its side. Tiff stretched her arm out and grabbed it, grunting with pain as the hard ring struck her palm—but she’d made the pass. “ _Thanks!_ ” Mani yelled, and promptly nosedived into the ground. “I’m okay!”

Tiff averted her eyes and leaned forward hard. Alice had gotten out of sight already, and she’d been going fast when she left: Tiff would have to work hard to catch up. Especially on a shoddier-than-usual, school-issued broom: she still wasn’t used to it, even after a few days’ practice.

She dove low among the mess of pillars before her, picking up speed in the descent, and then regretted it at once. With many a frightened exclamation, she bobbed and weaved as the pillars flew at her—as she flew at the pillars, more precisely, but perspective was everything.

_Stupid Alice. Stupid new friends, stupid Shooting Star, stupid stupid stupid!_

She weaved particularly hard at the last pillar, corkscrewed around her broom, and barely held on. This was all wrong. And, if she was being honest with herself—her pace slowed a bit—it wasn’t the broom.

Well, okay, it _was_ the broom. Insofar as the broom was neither her old favorite broom, nor the greatest broom in the history of the world. But she should have gotten the hang of it by now! If only she wasn’t so _peeved_ by….

She skidded to a stop. There was a flash of red in the forest to her right.

“And Tiffany Vandergard, second place in the race, is diving into the forest and out of sight! Does she know something we don’t? She’d better, because the racers who fell asleep have come to, and they’re coming up fast behind!”

Tiff ignored the announcer’s fading voice: it wasn’t hard, with leaves and branches stinging her face every five seconds. But she was definitely seeing her quarry: a long, thin red shape darting through the trees ahead of her.

“Hey! Stay!”

It didn’t stay.

“Look, I’m _sorry!_ I’m _sorry_ , okay?”

She burst forward into a clearing, roughly circular in shape. The Shooting Star hovered at the other end. Tiff nudged her broom forward an inch, and as if the two brooms were connected by an invisible twenty-foot pole, the Shooting Star backed away by that much.

Tiff sighed, and looked down contritely. “I’m sorry, okay? I think I’ve figured it out. I think you’re… angry at me, for saying I would use another broom, right? I said I would, and that’s what made you fly away, not the professor’s threat. So, I’m sorry. And I….”

Tiff glanced up. The Shooting Star backed further away. “I was hoping,” she said, inching forward, “maybe you’d be willing to….”

It just backed away again. _Again_.

Tiff’s hand clenched her broom hard. “No. You know what? This is _stupid!_ ” She jabbed her finger at the Shooting Star. “ _You_ are being _stupid!_ ”

The Star froze.

Tiff was seeing red, and not just in the Shooting Star. “I am _trying_ , you know! I am _working myself to the bone_ just to _catch up to you!_ But I get it! You’re the Shooting flipping Star!” She didn’t even catch herself that time, a part of her mind noted. She _had_ to be furious. “If you don’t want me to ride you, it won’t happen! But you know what?”

She whirled her broom around, looking over her shoulder at the Star. “ _You_ chose _me_ , in case you’ve forgotten! _You’re_ the one who wanted to make this happen. So if this bond, or destiny, or _whatever_ is going to work out between us, then _you_ need to pull your _handle_ out of your _bristles!_ ”

Not that this broom had bristles. But whatever.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “If you want to put in some effort toward making this work, I’m open to it. But I’ve got a race to win. I can’t hang around forever waiting for you.”

She plunged back into the trees, not sparing a look back. Then, thinking about it, she waved her wand and conjured up some goggles to protect her eyes from the whipping branches.

Somehow, flying on the borrowed broom felt easier already, as she instinctively weaved her way around the trees. Maybe it had to do with how her chest was feeling lighter.

And then she heard a second sound of tearing branches off to her right. She glanced over and grinned. “About _time_ ,” she muttered.

Tiffany burst from the trees and dropped the school-issued broom to the ground behind her. Then she leaned forward on the Star, and was off like a shot.

Like a shooting star, in fact.

* * *

The secret, as Ximena had said, wasn’t just in getting more energy, or getting tired less easily. It was learning what tired _meant_. What level of exhaustion meant ‘I’m being a whiny little quadriceps, and I’m good for another mile’s jog? What level meant ‘stop in five hundred feet or you’ll be puking your breakfast’?

Alice’s arms were telling her to let go and fall off the broom, but judging by how loudly they were telling her, she had another ten minutes at least. She gripped tighter with her legs to buy herself more time, and pressed forward. The track was in sight, and one loop around it was the finale of the race—

“ _Whoa!_ It looks like Tiffany _did_ know something we didn’t!” The announcer’s voice was more enthusiastic than ever. “She’s just burst out of the woods riding the legendary broom, the same broom that nearly took Akko Kagari to a win last year—the one, the only, _Shooting Star!_ ”

Alice’s head jolted around to look behind her. That was a joke, right? It was some other broom painted red and with feathers glued on? There was no way someone would bring that to a _broom race,_ right?

Except the announcer had just said it happened before.

“Does she have no shame,” she whispered, and willed herself to go faster. Leaning forward harder, putting more pressure on her arms—she’d have even less time now, but it would be _worth it_ if it meant leaving Tiffany in her dust.

She kept glancing back. As she burst from the woods, Tiff wasn’t there. As she reached the track, though, Tiffany appeared in her peripheral vision, and was closing fast. “Come _on!_ ” Alice whispered to herself, and leaned forward even harder.

“ _Come on—_ ” she heard Tiffany yelling behind her. “You’re the fastest broom in the world, you can beat her, she needs a _mobility scooter_ , for cripes’ sake!”

Alice snarled, and went faster than she ever had before. She bent hard into the first u-curve, going sideways on her broom and trusting centripetal force more than her muscles to keep her mounted. But as she leveled out of that turn, Tiffany was right beside her. “How _dare_ you!” Alice yelled. “How _dare_ you cheat!”

“I’ll do whatever I need to do to win!”

They were neck and neck at the final curve. Alice kept to the inside, blocking Tiffany from taking the shorter path, but she knew the Shooting Star was faster even so. And her muscles were giving out: she hadn’t intended on going this fast.

“Ladies and gentlewitches, this is going to be close! Alice and Tiffany are a hair apart at most as the end of the race looms!”

Her hands slipped. She fell.

The finish line came up to meet her.

“And the winner is—!”

* * *

“Whoa!” Akko yelled, jumping up and down on the parapet. “I _still_ can’t believe it finished like that!”

“I can,” Amanda said, stretching her arm across her body. “Saw it coming a mile away.”

Diana, beside her, nodded. “I must agree with Akko on this one! To think, after all that, the winner was—”

“Ssh!” Akko waved the two of them off. “I just remembered, this is supposed to be _us_ time, not _us_ time.” She blinked, then looked at the uncomprehending Diana. “To clarify, the first ‘us’ is me and Sucy and Lotte, and the second ‘us’ is me and you. And you too, I guess, Amanda,” she added.

“Oh. _I_ see. What am I, chopped liver?” Amanda rolled her eyes.

They looked up at the floating screen, which displayed the first starting line. Lotte and Hannah were standing there, along with Constanze and a half a dozen other second-years.

“Go, Lotte! Kick the other teams’ butts!” Akko jumped up and down, fist in the air. “Woo!”

“Uh… go, Hannah! Do well!” Diana waved half-heartedly at the redhead next to Lotte, who was smirking with confidence. “Oh, who am I kidding. I’m not cut out to be a cheerleader.”

“You’re not kiddin’,” Amanda said next to both of them. She was stretched over in a backbend, limbering up for the race. “Here, watch and learn.”

She uncurled easily and jumped rhythmically. “ _Kick those witches in their pants, no one races like Constanze! Gooooo, green team!_ ”

Akko giggled, still jumping. Then she realized something mid-leap and landed quickly. “Hey,” she said, turning again to Diana, “Have you had time to hang out with them recently? Hannah and Barbara, I mean?”

“Um… no. Now that you mention it.” Diana pouted.

Akko grinned. “You should _make_ time. They’re your friends!”

“Well, I’ll do my best.” Diana smiled, looking up at the screen. Professor Nelson was shouting out the countdown. “I do hope you haven’t had Sucy attach the brooms to the platform again.”

Akko gasped. “Diana, I’m _surprised_ at you! We would never cheat—”

“ _Go!_ ” Professor Nelson yelled.

Lotte took off. Forward. Almost everyone else careened backward.

“—the same way twice,” Akko finished, grinning as shocked shouts sounded through the screen. She pulled a small vial from her pocket and tossed it in the air. “Reversal Juice is the working name for it. Realigns all the cells in the wood to be the other way, or something. Sucy’s invention!”

Lotte had a clear lead, but Constanze was hot on her tail, on what was arguably a broom beneath her—at least by name, and general shape, despite all the technology on it. Honestly, though, trying to mess up her broom was probably like trying to apply rat poison to a USB mouse. Hannah, on the other hand, was sprawled on the grass behind the starting line.

“Well, I _never_!” Diana huffed. She crossed her arms, but she couldn’t cross her mouth, which was clearly itching to smile.

“What’s so funny? Akko said.

“And Lotte Yanson takes an easy lead, as the other racers seem to have their brooms set to ‘reverse’!” The announcer’s voice was a little hoarse after the shouting she’d had to do last race. Akko leaned smugly against the tower.

“But what’s this? She seems to be having trouble staying on her broom! And who can blame her? Look at that!”

Akko’s eyes shot open. Either she was seeing things, or Lotte’s broom was getting smaller. It shrunk to a child broom’s size, and then even smaller, until she was balancing on something not much larger than a twig.

“ _Diana?_ ” Akko said.

Diana hid her mouth behind her hand, but Akko knew there was a mischievous smile behind it. “Just following _your_ example, Akko.”

“And,” the announcer called out, “it looks like Hannah England has had a clever idea, and is quickly making up lost ground!” The screen panned to show Hannah, riding her broom with the brush in front. She was hot on Lotte and Constanze’s heels.

“All right, it is _on!_ Go, Lotte!” Akko yelled.

“Show ‘em who’s boss, Constanze!”

“Kick them in the rear, Hannah!”

The three cheered together, for their separate teams. This might have been what adults called ‘irony’.

* * *

Rain kicked open the dorm room door, with both fists raised in the air and one of them stuffed with enough ten-pound notes to fill a piggy bank. “ _Vercterrer!_ ” she yelled, through a mouthful of mushrooms. “ _Yerrrrgh_.”

“Yeah, we won,” Ximena was saying over the phone. “Alice had the last leg, she did _really_ well holding off Tiffany—and Tiffany was, if you don’t mind me saying, on a _far_ superior broom! I guess our early-morning jogs paid off. And she only broke the one arm, falling off her broom at the end!”

Alice chuckled, leaning against the wall in her bed. With her working hand, she held up a copy of the celebratory photograph: Rain and Ximena cheering, and Alice holding the cup in her one good arm as she lay on a stretcher. That had been one night in a hospital bed she didn’t mind earning.

“Yes, I _know_ that’s one more arm than she should have broken—it’s okay, she’s getting better. Uh-huh. You want to hear from them? Okay.” Ximena held out her phone and tapped the ‘speaker’ button. “Say _hi_ to my parents, okay?”

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Lopez!” Alice called.

“ _Herler!_ ”

“Ooh, I should probably get Rain to the school nurse. I’m sorry, I have to go. Love you lots! Bye!”

Ximena pocketed the phone, then scowled at Rain’s bulging, overstuffed mouth. “I _told_ you not to do that girl Sucy’s tests.”

“ _Wrth ert_.”

“Yes, I suppose you’d think so.” Ximena sighed. “I’ll get you down to the hospital wing, in case you choke on some of those mushrooms sprouting from your… tongue. Eugh.”

She made to walk away, but Rain nudged her. “ _Ertergrerff_ ,” she mumbled.

“What? Oh!” And Ximena reached out and swiped the photo from Alice’s hand.

“Hey! What gives?” Alice leaned forward indignantly, but stopped as a twinge of pain came from her broken arm. “Oh, oh, ow.”

Ximena and Rain had moved in front of her desk now, and were doing something she couldn’t see in front of their bodies. “Aaaand… just a second… _there_!”

Ximena and Rain turned around proudly, each holding a corner of the picture. It was unchanged, except for two big signatures on it: _Ximena Lopez_ and _Rain Williams_.

Alice squinted. “What?”

“ _Frr yrr berg berk!_ ” Rain explained. “ _Ther wern werth erl ther_ —”

Ximena waved her to be quiet. “We were thinking,” she said, “it could be a memento for your big autograph book. And you should sign it too!”

“ _I_ should sign it?”

Rain made a sort of ‘yeah, duh’ expression. Probably. It was hard to tell with a mouthful of mushrooms. “Of course you should sign it,” Ximena said, grinning. “After all, that’s the book where you keep all the autographs of great witches, isn’t it?”

Alice blinked, considering this as she took the photo from Ximena’s hand. “And now,” Ximena said, “we really have to go before this blocks her airway.” She hurried Rain out the door. “Can you pull them out?” Alice heard her whisper.

“ _Er trerd, bert ther jerst grer berk…._ ”

Alice held the photo up, staring at it. Then she jumped to her feet, ignoring the twinge from her arm, and plonked it on the desk. Grabbing a pen, and thanking heaven she’d broken her non-dominant arm, she signed the photo: _Alice Gainesbury_. Then she bent down to grab her big book of autographs, heaved it onto the desk, and opened it to an empty page. A little one-handed enchantment was enough to make the back of the photo stick to the book.

Alice smiled at it. Here were the autographs of three up-and-coming witches. They were going to change the world.

She tried to close the book, but fumbled it somehow—she snorted: too disabled to close a book? Instead of the cover flopping over, she’d turned the book to its first page.

An old, faded birthday card stared at her: the first autograph she’d gotten. It flopped open as she stared back, and she read the childish writing within. _Happy birthday to the best witch ever! From, Tiffany Vandergard_.

Alice growled and slammed the book shut.


	10. Shooting Star, There You Are! (1)

“Since when do you have a sword?” Barbara asked.

Amanda pulled up her fencer’s mask, smirking, and gave the sword a few flourishes. “My dumb parents learned I was a badass swordfighter that one time at Appleton, and made me do fencing over the summer.” She entered a few forms in quick succession, each one clearly practiced, then groaned and slumped in a neutral position. “At least it’s another way to get in fights. Speaking of which—” She pointed her sword at Barbara. “Have at me!”

“What? No.” Barbara picked up her piece of watermelon, and was about to take a bite when the tip of Amanda’s sword jutted in to pierce it. “Hey!” she yelled, as Amanda flicked the sword, sending the watermelon in an arc that ended in her mouth.

Akko snorted. The nine of them—Akko’s, Diana’s, and Amanda’s teams—were out on the lawn of Luna Nova, on the first weekend they’d all been able to get together. Akko had just _barely_ managed to organize it, but they were finally here.

“Don’t respond, Barbara,” Hannah muttered, not looking up from the fighting game she and Constanze were playing together. “It’s what she wants—hey, how did you even do that?” She growled as Constanze pulled off some sort of special spinning-kick move, winning the match. “Tell me how to do that input!”

Constanze rolled her eyes.

“I _know_ you can talk!”

Another eyeroll.

Barbara frowned, and chucked another slice of watermelon at Amanda, who chopped it in half easily. “What do you _mean_ , ‘have at you’, anyway?”

“Challenge me! I haven’t gotten in any fights since I got back!” Amanda shivered. “I’m going out of my mind here!”

“Most people don’t think of that as a bad thing,” Lotte said from behind her copy of _Nightfall_. She sat beside Barbara, at a card table with the watermelon slices on it.

“I’m Amanda O-Freaking-Neill, not most people! Come on, fight me!” She whirled around toward Akko. “Akko, you’re down for anything, right?”

“ _Pop pep pip poppop_ ,” Akko said, smiling at Diana.

“What?”

“ _Popo pip pip puppu_ ,” Diana responded, sitting beside her and looking into her eyes.

Akko flinched. “Uh, Diana,” Akko said, turning to her, “I think you were going for ‘ _popo pip_ pep _puppu_ ’.”

“So what did I say instead?”

“I... _really_ shouldn’t say it out loud.”

Diana blushed.

“Are you even listening to me?” Amanda yelled.

“What?” Akko looked up. “Oh, sorry! I was helping Diana practice her Fish. What was the question?”

“Do you wanna duel me so I can justify the stupid fencing class my parents signed me up for?”

Akko frowned. “ _Pop pippo_. That’s Fish for ‘no thanks’.”

Amanda groaned. “Isn’t _anyone_ gonna—”

“ _Wow_ ,” Sucy said from behind the other snack table, swishing a potion around inside a vial with a stylized flame on it. “Your parents cared about a special interest of yours and encouraged it. That sounds _terrible_.”

Amanda whipped around to face her, her eyebrows making a V. “You looking for a _fight_?”

“Yes.”

Amanda blinked. “Oh. Great, thanks!”

“Give me one minute,” Sucy murmured, and leaned forward. She and Jasminka stood over some foodstuffs of Jasminka’s creation, and judging by how the donuts were melted and spewing smog, Sucy seemed to be using them for testing. As Akko watched, Sucy yanked the cork from her vial and dripped it on an uncooked croissant. One puff of smoke later, and the croissant was a deep golden brown.

Jasminka beamed, then frowned as the golden-brown of the croissant wilted into a charred black. “Hm,” Sucy said, tapping her chin. “Needs a lighter touch.”

Jasminka shrugged, grabbed the croissant, and swallowed it in one bite.

“All right,” Sucy said, slouching around her table and toward the one where Lotte and Barbara sat. “Can I borrow this?”

“Can you borrow what?” Lotte said, before Sucy lifted the table and yanked off one of its detachable legs. Lotte yelped and leaned forward to grab the table as Sucy let go, before it could tip over and spill watermelon all over the ground.

Sucy tapped the leg with her wand, and it grew and changed from a medium-sized plastic shaft to a long, thick oaken staff. “Ready when you are,” she said, holding the staff loosely.

Amanda’s eyebrow went up. “I was kinda hoping for a sword fight.” She waved her wand, and a sword appeared in its sheath from thin air: she grabbed the scabbard and tossed it to Sucy.

Sucy leaned to one side, and the sword flew past her, disappearing as it hit the ground. “I don’t know swords. This is what I _do_ know. You want a fight or not?” Despite her aggressive words, her tone remained neutral, and her slouching gait didn’t look at all ready for a ruckus.

Well, neutral if you didn’t know Sucy, anyway. Akko leaned forward: something wasn’t quite right here.

“Sucy,” Lotte said, still leaning forward to keep the table level, “since when do you pick fights?” All eyes were on the two combatants: Constanze and Hannah paused their game, Barbara had put down her book, and Jasminka wasn’t even eating.

Of those staring at Sucy, only Amanda didn’t seem the least bit concerned. “No sword, huh? Unconventional.” She bared her teeth. “I like your style! _En garde!_ ”

She leaped forward, sword outstretched.

There was only one word that Akko could think of to describe what happened next, and that was _pepapi_. Which was Fish for ‘embarrassing’.

Amanda hacked and slashed, driving Sucy back, or at least leading her there, but Sucy wasn’t even using her staff to block. She just walked backward—at least that was how it looked—and Amanda’s sword kept hitting the places where she wasn’t.

Akko squinted and looked harder. It wasn’t just _walking_ that Sucy was doing: she was bobbing and turning, little movements that left Amanda’s sword swiping through nothing but air, millimeters away from Sucy’s skin.

Finally, Amanda growled and threw her weight into a horizontal slash. Sucy’s staff came up as quickly as a striking snake to block.

Amanda’s eyes widened, and Sucy grinned, and before there was time for any more facial expressions, Sucy’s staff whirled like a propeller. Amanda’s sword went flying, there was the meaty sound of wood striking flesh, and Amanda staggered back while clutching her wrist.

“ _Pop pep pippo pip!_ ” Akko said excitedly. “ _Pepapi_.”

“ _Popo_ ,” Diana admonished, “ _peppe pip ‘pepapi’ pip_.”

“Would you two stop commentating in Fish?” Amanda yelled, backing away. She stumbled and landed on her rear on the ground.

Sucy advanced on her and pointed her staff at Amanda’s throat, still holding that devilish smile on her face. “You’re not very fluent in swordfighting yet.”

“Oh yeah?” Amanda’s bruised hand curled into a fist. “Then how about I switch to my native language?”

Her hips bucked, sending her legs into the air to wrap around Sucy’s staff. Before Sucy could react, Amanda twisted like a breakdancer and wrenched the staff from her grasp. It flew off and landed next to Amanda’s fallen sword. “Come on,” Amanda said, jumping to her feet and raising her fists. “Show me what you’ve got without that _staff!_ ”

She bolted forward on the last word, then jumped and twisted into a spinning kick with the heel aimed at Sucy’s head. Sucy ducked, but as Amanda landed, she conserved her rotation with a leg sweep that Sucy couldn’t avoid in time. She struck the ground face first.

Amanda laughed, and punched down at Sucy, but Sucy rolled at the last moment to send Amanda’s fist into the ground. Sucy grabbed Amanda’s upper arm with one hand, and the back of her robe with the other, and with a leg sweep of her own sent Amanda sprawling.

“Kick her butt, Sucy!” Akko pumped her fist, then sighed with contentment as Amanda tried to turn Sucy’s face into pulp. “I love having everyone together like this.”

Diana winced. “Maybe so, but we should break this up.”

Upon further inspection, Akko winced too. “Ooh, ow. You’re right.” This didn’t look sporting anymore: Amanda was yanking at Sucy’s hair, while Sucy was going for Amanda’s kidneys.

“I quite agree,” said a third voice, much colder than theirs.

Twin beams of light fired from behind Akko, catching Sucy and Amanda and surrounding each in a personal bubble. The bubbles levitated, drawing the fighters apart. Amanda looked up, her nose bloodied, and said, “Professor Croix?” She panted, each breath heavy. “How long were you watching?”

“I’m _always_ watching.” Professor Croix’s hologram smiled, standing atop one of her disks with one hand on her hip: two more disks to her sides had their shooters exposed, clearly having fired the levitation spells. “In all seriousness,” she said, “I’ve seen more than enough to get you both sent to detention. Scrubbing latrines until your olfactory organs give out.”

Amanda and Sucy gulped.

Croix chuckled, and the levitating bubbles around Amanda and Sucy disappeared. “Nice handiwork, Amanda,” she said, as Amanda fell to the ground. “You should talk to Professor Chariot if you want to learn more about hand to hand combat. She’s the expert. And as for _you_.” She pointed at Sucy.

Sucy squinted.

“And you too, Akko,” Croix continued, her eyes gliding over Akko’s face. “But most of all….” Her pointing finger moved, slowly but surely, to settle on Lotte. “You. The headmistress wants to see all three of you at your earliest convenience.”

Lotte started, and looked up from the table she was still supporting. ‘Me? What did I do?”

“It’s not what you _did_ , it’s what you’re _going_ to do. Headmistress Holbrooke will explain everything, and she _eagerly_ awaits your company. Later!” WIth a wink, her hologram disappeared, and the three disks flew away toward the school.

“Ooh,” Barbara said, grinning mischievously and supporting the three-legged card table as Lotte let go. “Someone’s in trouble again!”

“No we’re not! I… don’t think?” Lotte frowned, worry obvious on her face. “What does the headmistress want with us?”

Akko stood. “I guess we’d better go and find out. Later, everyone!”

Sucy, meanwhile, had pulled out yet another vial from the bottomless collection within her robes. There was an ugly blotch of a bruise growing on her face, just under her left eye: she let a droplet of potion fall on the bruise, then clenched her teeth and hissed as the potion made a sizzling sound. A foul smell burst forth from the potion, but the blotch on Sucy’s face went away, leaving only a faded bruise that looked a week old.

“Wow,” Amanda said, panting. “Where the hell did you learn to fight?”

Sucy shrugged, but tossed the vial to Amanda. “Thanks,” Amanda said. “We should do that again some time.”

“I’ll let you know.” Sucy smiled and walked off toward the castle, her head bobbing in its usual rhythm. Lotte and Akko followed.

“Okay, let’s see how this does on bloody noses,” said Amanda’s voice behind them. There was a _puff_ , and then a _sizzling_ sound, and Amanda started retching. “Oh my god, it smells worse than the _latrines!_ It’s in my _nose!_ Why does it smell so bad, Sucy?”

Sucy snickered.

* * *

“Let me make this clear, to begin with.” Headmistress Holbrooke leaned forward over her desk, fingers steepled. Croix’s hologram stood on one side of her, and Lukić sat at the other. “You three are not in trouble.”

Akko blinked. Then she grabbed her upper arm in her thumb and middle finger, and pinched as hard as she could. Then she did it to Lotte. “Ow!” said Lotte. “What was that for?”

“One of us _has_ to be dreaming, right?” Akko pinched Sucy, who grimaced. “Maybe it’s me? Maybe it doesn’t work if I pinch myself. Sucy, pinch me!”

“Okay.”

“ _OW!_ ”

Professor Lukić sniggered, seated in a corner of the room well away from the headmistress. “Very good, very good!”

Somehow, her inane laughter killed the mood faster than any disapproving glare could have. Akko and her friends stopped the pinching, and she frowned. “What’s she doing here, Headmistress?”

“She’s actually early for our next appointment—pay her no mind.” Holbrooke waved her hand dismissively. “In any case, I have an assignment for you, should you choose to accept it. More specifically….” Her flapping hand stopped, and she pointed her finger at Lotte. “An assignment for _you_.”

“That’s what Professor Croix said,” Lotte said, tapping her fingers against one another. “But I still don’t understand.”

“Not to worry! All will be made clear….”

Headmistress Holbrooke pulled open a drawer in her massive desk and pulled out a remote. She tapped it, and another one of Croix’s droids hovered over her desk.

“Er, Headmistress,” Croix said, her smile looking strained, “are you certain you wouldn’t prefer to use _my_ presentation? The one I emailed you last night?”

“The one you what?” Headmistress Holbrooke shrugged.

“Hah,” Lukić said with a snort. “Old lady doesn’t know about email!”

“You’re older than _me_ , Lukić, so stop that nonsense—in any case,” Holbrooke continued, “I’m sure mine will be fine.”

Lotte’s eyebrows went up. “Aren’t you over a hundred—”

Holbrooke clicked the button, and a screen appeared in the space above the droid, projected into thin air. On it, the following words appeared in Comic Sans, with a swirl effect and a trumpet fanfare:

 

 

> A Ghost Is Haunting Our
> 
> Library
> 
> What _You_ Can Do To
> 
> Help

“Oh my god,” Croix mumbled, burying her face in her hands.

* * *

Tiffany had _no_ idea what was going on inside the Headmistress’s office. All she heard was some groaning, some indistinct chatter, and then—at last—a loud, “We’ll do it!” Tiffany jolted upright at that—it was Akko’s voice.

Then she slouched over again, bathing in the stew of impotent regret.

The door burst open after a while, and Tiffany saw a few things beyond it: Professor Croix with her face in her hands, a cackling Professor Lukić, and the headmistress looking very pleased with herself under the worst Powerpoint slide Tiffany had ever seen (she counted three separate animated pictures, each one with its own background that clashed with the slide’s own background).

A little closer, though, were the three figures of Akko and her friends. “We’ll be there!” Akko said, waving back at the headmistress. “You can count on us!”

“Er, actually,” the bespectacled one said—Lotte, if Tiffany remembered correctly. “You said you mostly needed me for this, right? So why did you get Akko and Sucy?”

“Well,” Headmistress Holbrooke said, steepling her hands, “if there’s one truth I noticed over our previous school year, it’s that Lotte Jansson doesn’t do anything without Atsuko Kagari and Sucy Manbavaran by her side.”

Lotte shrunk a little. “Oh, uh… okay.”

Akko turned around and shut the door. “That was the _worst_ Powerpoint I have ever seen,” said the curvy witch on Akko’s other side, the one who had to be Sucy.

Akko blinked, then glanced in Tiffany’s direction, then exploded into an energetic wave. “Hey, Tiff! What’s up?”

“Detention.” Tiffany looked at the floor.

“Oh.”

Tiff sighed. “I guess this is the part where you chide me for being irresponsible or something, right, _R.A._?”

“Ehhhhhhh…” Akko sucked in a breath. “That would be a bit… what’s the word for when you say one thing and do another?”

“Hypocritical?” Lotte said.

“That’s the one! I’ve been put in detention enough times to earn a free smoothie.”

“Or an expulsion,” Sucy added in that droning way of hers.

“Or that, yes.” Akko bounced back, smiling. “Not this time, though! I hope they don’t go too hard on you. See you later, Tiff!”

With that, she bounced away. And Lotte, well, she did more of a scurry. But _Sucy_... Tiff watched for longer than was probably warranted, as Sucy _swayed_ her way down the corridor behind her two friends.

“Next up, Tiffany Vandergard,” called a voice from inside. “Miss Vandergard?”

Tiff shook herself. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and drudged her way into the room. She took a deep breath, then looked up. “If I might say something in my defense, it’s—oh wow.”

“What?” The headmistress raised an eyebrow.

“Those hats.” And indeed there were nine hats—well, sculptures of headgear—on stands in a semicircle behind the headmistress. “Those are the hats of the Nine Olde Witches—or reproductions, I assume.”

“Quite accurate reproductions, in fact!” The headmistress smiled. “I don’t suppose you can identify each one?”

“Atikah.”

Tiffany pointed at the leftmost hat, then let her finger sweep among the rest. They weren’t in the proper order, but they were still recognizable. “Lucretia. Scarlette. Beatrix. Scholastica, Han Lanying, Tlahuelpuchi, Groa, and… Woodward, their leader.” She allowed herself a satisfied smile. “My mother had me memorize them, and—”

“Old hat!” Lukić cried out. She started laughing to herself, apparently without noticing anyone else in the room. This continued unabated for twenty seconds.

“Er,” the headmistress said, and cleared her throat a little as Lukić’s laughter died down. “We do actually need to get down to business, so… you were going to say something in your defense, dear?”

“Oh, yes.” Tiff cleared her throat as well. “It’s Char’s fault.”

The headmistress leaned forward. “Pardon?”

“I spent so much time getting her to _her_ class that she made me late for _my_ class. She’s _terrible_ at getting up in the mornings.” Tiff frowned. “Or at any other time of day.”

Professor Croix gestured, and a translucent spreadsheet appeared in midair before her. She tutted. “I can’t help but notice that on all the days _you_ were late—” a set of cells lit up in red, followed by another set in a different column which lit up green “—Charlotte Jones was on time.”

“Her Numerology class is at the opposite end of the building from my Potions class!”

“In _any_ case,” the headmistress said with a little raise of her voice, “while I appreciate your helpfulness for your friend, the _reason_ for your tardiness isn’t an _excuse_ for it.”

Tiff stared at the floor. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, as it was Professor Lukić’s class you were late for, it will be Professor Lukić who decides the nature of your detention. Professor?”

Professor Croix and the headmistress both looked expectantly at Professor Lukić, and then—slowly, creakily—she got up. Leaning heavily on a staff for balance, she trodded past the desk, past Tiff, and to the door.

Okay then.

Several more seconds elapsed, and a wave of her staff opened the door ahead of her, and only there—after about half a minute—did she pause. “Walk with me, child,” she said, not looking behind herself.

Tiff glanced back at Croix and the headmistress, but they seemed just as confused as herself, so Tiffany followed Lukić as she left the room. She had to walk slow as a snail to keep pace with the professor, but she was an authority, after all. She deserved the respect.

They proceeded for about a minute, and just when Tiff was about to ask what the point of this all was—in a very respectful way, of course—Lukić spoke up. “You know what potion making is, reddened child?”

“Er… yes, professor.”

“It’s more art than science, yet more science than art. The challenge of making something more than the sum of its parts, yet the fact is, each part must be worthy of that sum! You’re a talented young girl with a lot ahead of her, but too many missteps….” Lukić tutted. “It’ll all turn out wrong, child.”

She was talking in circles. Tiff nodded. “Of course, Professor.” Maybe not so respectable.

“You understand, when I was a little younger, witches didn’t show up late to class.” Professor Lukić smiled vaguely, and continued in a similar rambling fashion, looking somewhere into the distance. “Education was the most important thing for a witch and we all did our part to make it happen, at the right time, with the right minds. All the right ingredients, you understand.”

“I understand, Professor.”

“You do, hm.”

“Yes, Professor—”

“ _You think I’m just some doddering old witch, don’t you?_ ”

The voice was strident and clear. Lukić’s gaze, suddenly transfixed upon her, was sharp as a laser. Tiffany jumped back. “I—” she eventually stammered, “I wouldn’t say _that_ —I mean, I wouldn’t _say_ that!”

Lukić stared at her for seconds longer, with that gaze that made Tiff feel like an insect pinned to a board, and then she let out one of her long shrill cackles. “You’re more right than you know,” she said at last. “The Jansson girl and her friends are at the library tonight. You’ll go with them, won’t you, and help them with their trouble? Eleven thirty on the _dot_.”

She leaned in and tapped Tiffany’s nose. “And try to learn something in the process. You may go now.”

“Y—yes, Professor,” Tiffany managed. She turned tail and fled.

“Oh!” Professor Lukić called out behind her. “And bring that marvelous broom of yours!”

* * *

 _Vandergard_.

It wasn’t a voice in the traditional sense. Which was to say, it wasn’t a voice that Tiffany heard with her ears.

_Tiffany Vandergard. Can you hear me?_

It was more like the voice she had in her head when she read a book, and she came across the dialogue of a character as beautiful as she was mysterious. A voice conjured up by no one except herself.

_Tiffany!_

Tiff jolted awake.

The curtains were drawn, but they weren’t thick: moonlight still illuminated the room. Tiffany groaned a little, sat up, and saw Mani’s peaceful sleeping face in the white light. She heard Char’s clumsy snores beneath her.

The Shooting Star hung motionless above Mani’s body, as if looking at the veiled moon.

Tiff frowned at it. “That’s creepy,” she mumbled. “Stop.”

The broom made no motion. Tiffany checked a clock at her bedside and sighed: eleven seventeen. Time to go.

She quietly let herself down from her bunk and dressed in decent clothes, then reached for her broom. She pulled, but it didn’t move. “Come on,” she hissed, “I need to bring you to detention! I’m not happy about this either!”

The Star held still for a moment more, then flew itself toward the door of the room, pressed its front on the doorknob, and opened the door; it wasted no time in whizzing out the door. “Come _on_ ,” Tiffany said, hurrying after it, “where are you going to _now_ —”

She stopped, because the broom had too. The Shooting Star hovered expectantly before another window in the hallway.

Tiff raised her hands. “You can clearly open it yourself—” She grunted and let those hands fall. “I don’t get you.”

The Shooting Star tilted, as if listening.

“Just….” Tiffany rubbed her forehead. “You chose me. You’re some sort of super powerful artifact and you’ve chosen to hang around _me_ , but I still have no idea _why_. Is it because I’m such good company?”

She glanced away. “And if I’m such good company, then why….”

Tiff shook herself. “Look, whatever we’re going to do tonight, I can’t shake the feeling it’ll be dangerous. Can I rely on you? No running away, no trying to hold me back, I just… I want to be able to know I can trust you, here and now.”

The Star tilted from side to side again, as if weighing this in its mind, and then hovered lower—low enough to get on.

Tiff flashed a small smile. “Thanks.”

With a wave of her wand, the window opened. Tiff hopped onto the broom—her broom—and soared into the moon-bathed sky.

At first, there was silence beyond silence—somehow more than a mere lack of noise. With only the scarred, quiet moon to light the grounds, and not even a whisper of breeze to sway the grass far below, Tiff was afraid to breathe too loud, to _think_ too loud in case someone woke up. The Shooting Star, of course, cut through the air without even a whisper, as Tiff unconsciously let herself fly in a wide, lazy arc to see the school at its best.

Three towers emerging from the building, and another further off—impossibly high and spindly—that housed the Sorcerer’s Stone. All were black silhouettes against the light of the moon. Only now did Tiff allow herself a little sigh of contentment.

That was when she heard the song.

It wasn’t a loud song, and the words were nothing Tiffany recognized—indeed, the language wasn’t English—but in the silence of the witching hour, that song was the only thing to hear. Its source was unclear, and it bathed the landscape in the same way the moonlight did, to the point that Tiffany imagined that the moon itself was singing some mysterious lament.

Only that wasn’t quite right. As Tiffany arced toward the school, she found that the voice _did_ have a source. Eventually, she realized it was coming from the very library she was supposed to be reaching. And so she followed the voice, like an obedient sailor swimming out to a siren.

A pretty grim analogy, when she thought about it.

* * *

The library wasn’t the right size.

Well, okay, in _one_ sense it was the right size in terms of how this was supposedly the world’s best school of magic, so it made _sense_ that the library would be absolutely massive with shelves as far as the eyes could see, white vaulted ceilings, etcetera etcetera—

The trouble was, she was pretty sure it was bigger on its inside than the whole of Luna Nova was on its outside. Come to think of it, Mother had mentioned this once when gushing about her alma mater, but it was a very different thing to _hear_ about such a place versus _seeing_ one.

So that was a little disconcerting—and it didn’t help that in this huge, multileveled _warehouse_ of a library, the continued singing bounced off every available surface until its source was indistinguishable. Tiffany found herself playing hot-and-cold, doubling back frequently as she tried to approach the voice’s source.

It _especially_ didn’t help that in this empty library, where the bookshelves cast long shadows in the moonlight, the voice wasn’t soothing anymore. It was _eerie_.

But not quite as eerie as when it stopped.

Tiffany froze as the source of the noise disappeared, as suddenly as a needle being yanked off a record. Several seconds passed in the library before the final echoes faded. Then Tiffany realized she was holding the Shooting Star so tight, her hand was turning as red as its handle. “Sorry,” she whispered, trying to loosen her grip.

She turned a corner, walked two corridors forward, turned another corner, and came face to face with _two glowing white eyes_.

Tiff screamed.

The face screamed.

“Shush!” yelled a familiar voice, and Tiffany found a hand clamped across her face. A second later, she saw a matching hand clamped over the bespectacled face—oh for gosh’s sake, those weren’t giant glowing eyes, those were _glasses_ reflecting the _moonlight_ —clamped over the bespectacled face of the girl in front of her.

Tiffany looked down at the hand, then traced the arm up to its owner. Her eyes widening in surprise, she firmly pulled the hand off her face and whispered, “Akko?”

“Tiff!” Akko showed off a tight little smile. “Hi! Also, what are you doing here.”

“Er… oh. Did….” Tiff grimaced. “Did Professor Lukić not tell you I was coming?” When Akko’s face showed no signs of recognition, Tiff sighed. “This is my detention. I guess it’s probably your detention too.”

“Nope!” Akko puffed up her chest. “We’re performing a special service to the school! And in exchange, we’re getting special one-use-only get out of detention… free… cards….” She slumped, eyes wide with realization. “Oh my god, we basically _did_ get detention.”

“Akko,” said Glasses Girl, finally free of Akko’s hand on her mouth.

“For _nothing!_ ”

“Akko, please, keep quiet!” Glasses Girl grabbed Akko’s arm and shook it. “The ghost will hear!”

Tiff blinked. “The what.”

“Oh!” said Akko, no more quietly than before. She grabbed Tiff’s hand, and she grabbed Glasses Girl’s hand, and she brought the two together in a clumsy shake. “Tiff, meet Lotte Jansson. She’s the ghost expert on our team.”

“Wait,” Tiff said, and she let go of Lotte’s hand as soon as Akko let her. “Charmed, but _wait_. What ghost?”

“Oh, yeah, there’s a library in this ghost.” Akko frowned. “No, hang on, other way around. And we’re missing someone. Where is she….”

“No no, don’t change the topic.” Tiffany whipped around, feeling her heartbeat speed up. Was there something behind her? “What ghost?”

A grinning face flashed in front of her own. “ _Boo_.”

Tiff and Lotte both screamed. Akko didn’t. “ _Sucy,_ ” she said, hands on her hips.

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have,” Sucy said in a nasally, laissez-faire sort of voice, hanging upside down from the bookshelf next to Tiff. She swung herself down and landed on her feet with perfect poise. With the way her robe draped loosely upon the stone floor, she now seemed not to be standing but _sprouting_ from it.

“Tiff,” Akko said, grabbing Tiff’s hand again, “meet—” Akko reached for Sucy’s hand, but Sucy snatched it away. “Meet… _mee-ee-eet_ ….”

Akko kept reaching, and Sucy kept dodging. Finally, Akko sighed and let her outstretched arm slump. “Meet Sucy Manbavaran. She’s… nice.” She smiled like a novice politician who’d just learned how to lie.

Sucy snorted, then reached out her hand of her own accord and shook Tiffany’s. “Nice to meet you,” she said as if it was a joke, and she smiled. “And that's Akko Kagari. Recovering idiot.”

“She knows that!” Akko said partway through Sucy’s line, and then she went as crimson as she could in the blue moonlight. “I mean, she knows the first part.”

“She knows that you're recovering but not that you're an idiot?”

“Sucy!”

Sucy smiled like she knew something the rest of them didn't.

Which, in fact, was true - at least in Tiff's case. “Charmed,” she said again. “Now _seriously_. _What ghost_.”

“Oh!” Akko smiled. “Well, you see, there’s a ghost.”

Silence stretched out. It was quite different from both the serene silence of outside, and the eerie silence from earlier. Finally, Tiff growled, and said, “ _And?_ ”

“And… uh, we need to stop it?” Akko scratched the back of her head. “It’s just, the Powerpoint was _really bad_ , and I zoned out. I think we all did.”

Lotte crossed her arms. “ _I_ didn’t.”

“Wow, really? Sucy, did you zone out?”

Sucy nodded.

“Yeah, so two out of the three of us did, so _statistically speaking_ —”

Tiff tuned her out and turned to face Lotte. “So, there’s a ghost?”

Lotte sighed and started walking. Tiff followed, Shooting Star still in hand, not waiting to see if Akko and Sucy would follow. “Apparently there’s _been_ a ghost for over a thousand years, almost as long as the school’s existed. For some reason, it’s never caused anyone any problems before… except that last week, a girl got hospitalized. You know Wangari, the announcer?”

“I think so?”

“She’s in the hospital wing with bruises all over her body, and a couple of broken bones. All she’s said was that the ghost did it. And—” Lotte looked down at her feet. “Since then, people have been finding library books… vandalized.”

Tiff gasped. “We have to stop it. Do we know what it looks like?”

“A floating book,” Sucy said from behind them, “glowing blue and flapping like it’s flying.”

Lotte raised her eyebrows and turned around. “Oh, so you _did_ pay attention!”

“Nope.”

Sucy raised a finger and pointed. Tiff followed the line of the finger, just in time to see the glowing blue book—hovering at the end of the corridor—dart out of view.

Akko gasped. “After it!”

They ran. Tiffany started out right behind Lotte. That didn’t last: Akko quickly overtook her, and Sucy was fast on her heels, and even _Lotte_ was a good runner despite her slight build. It was easy to get the feeling they’d done this before. “Wait up!” she gasped.

Sucy glanced behind. “You have a broom.”

“So?” In the semi-darkness, Tiff cried out as she almost stumbled over her feet: how was Sucy staying up with that long dress? Not to mention all the swaying.

“So ride the broom.”

“Wha—” Tiff found herself momentarily distracted. “What? We’re not allowed to ride indoors! It’s against the rules!”

“We’re chasing a _ghost!_ ” Akko yelled. “What do you _mean,_ rules?”

Tiffany gritted her teeth. Stubbornly, she ran on—ordering her legs to keep pace with the girls ahead of her. Yet it seemed like the four of them—five, counting the Shooting Star—weren’t getting any closer to their destination, what with how they were running past identical rows of bookshelves.

She blinked. Come to think of it, this really reminded her of—

“Stop!” Lotte hissed.

Akko and Sucy came to a halt. Tiffany kept running until she’d caught up to them. To her dismay, it took several seconds.

Lotte’s hand was outstretched behind her, with a palm directed at the rest of them, and she peeked around the corner of one of the bookshelves. “It’s there,” she whispered.

Akko crept closer and popped her head around the corner too, above Lotte’s. Sucy’s head went between theirs. Tiff wasn’t tall enough to do anything but crouch low, so that she could peek out under Lotte.

The bookshelf wasn’t a usual one: it had a lowered section in the middle, forming a broad shelf with a plaque reading, “Our Illustrious History”. Tiffany recognized several artifacts among those upon the shelf: the wand of Jennifer, the Cane of Melissa (twentieth headmistress of the academy), and the cloak of Woodward.

The ghost-book didn’t seem to notice these items. It floated gently along the bookshelf across from the artifacts, as if perusing the titles, before stopping in front of a particularly wide volume. The blue glow reached out, and the second book floated off its perch, then splayed open, then—shuddered, as if being wounded. Little black _things_ flew from the normal book to the ghost-book.

“What’s she doing?” Akko whispered.

“She’s…” Lotte peered closer. “I think those are _words_. She’s taking words from other books and putting them inside herself.”

“The _fiend_ ,” Tiffany whispered.

Akko made a little gasp. “There _is_ a library in this ghost!” Then she frowned. “But why is she—”

“She’s putting herself together,” Sucy breathed. In contrast to her earlier bored tone, she sounded _very_ invested all of a sudden. “She’s trying to figure out who she is. Where she came from.”

The rest of them stared at her. Sucy glanced down at them, and then flinched a second later, as if something had startled her. “It’s obvious,” she said, a bit too quickly. “This is the history section. Famous old witches.”

A bit too quickly and a bit too loudly. Out of the corner of her eye, Tiff noticed that the ghost-book had frozen, and the other book fell to the floor. “She heard you,” Akko whispered, for some goshforsaken reason.

Lotte sucked in a breath as the book turned its spine toward them. “I should go talk to—”

“You should go talk to it!” Akko said, and pushed her forward into the corridor.

Lotte made a noise that sounded like “Eep”, and the ghost focused her full attention on her. “Hello, I’m Lotte?” she asked.

The book floated.

“I, um….” Lotte twiddled her fingers.

Sucy put her palm next to her mouth and hissed, “ _Sing at her!_ ”

“Oh, right.” Lotte straightened up, sucked in a breath, and held it for a moment. Then her mouth opened, and she sang.

It was the same haunting melody from before, but now it was _right here_. Tiffany found her gaze affixed upon Lotte as the song started low, but steadily grew in volume. She didn’t understand the words—she wasn’t even sure if there _were_ words—yet she somehow felt she understood the intent. It was as if the song was asking a question: “Who are you?”

“What’s going on?” Tiff asked.

“She can sing to spirits and communicate with them,” Sucy whispered. “Obviously.”

Lotte’s song continued, and her voice reached a high note, and a blue helix of misty energy spiraled upward from the book. Tiff squinted and saw the barest vestiges of a face in the swirl—just two circles for eyes, and a blob below for a mouth.

Lotte cleared her throat. “As I said, I’m Lotte Jansson.” She sounded far more at ease now. “It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

The blob of a mouth moved as if speaking, but Tiff didn’t hear a thing. “What’s it say—” she started to say before Sucy’s hand clamped over her mouth.

Lotte tilted her head to the side. “Please don’t call me Mama. I’m Lotte Jansson. Um… what were you reading?” She picked up the book that the ghost had dropped. “‘The Founding of Luna Nova’,” huh?”

She waited for a few seconds, but no answer seemed to be forthcoming, so she asked again: “Can you remember your name?”

The mouth curved into a frown, and little puffs of smoke fell from the spirit’s eyes. “Please don’t cry,” Lotte said, stepping forward. “It’s all right, my friends and I are here to help. Can you tell us anything about where you—”

The energy swirl went red, and the eye-dots narrowed in sudden anger. “No,” Lotte said, “I—I don’t understand. Why would I ‘abandon’ you? I’m here to—”

The spirit’s mouth opened, and it made its first noise: an ear-splitting _shriek_. Tiffany clutched her ears and fell to the ground in pain. Akko and Sucy didn’t.

When Tiffany’s clenched eyes opened again, she saw that even though its shriek had died down, the spirit’s mouth was still twisted with fury. The bookshelves to either side of it—to either side of Lotte, who backed up steadily—rumbled, and books started flying out to hover between them. With agonizing deliberation, their spines turned to face Lotte, and Tiff had a horrid vision of what would happen next.

“Get Lotte,” Sucy said, and Akko nodded, and they leapt into action as the books flew at Lotte.

“ _Veni!_ ” Akko yelled, jumping out into the aisle, and the spell yanked Lotte back behind the bookcase by her midriff. Sucy echoed the word, but her spell struck the Cane of Melissa instead and it flew into her hand.

They all cleared the corridor—Akko, Lotte, and Tiff on one side, Sucy on the other—just in time for a machine-gun volley of books to fly out of it, thudding against a far wall. “Run,” Sucy said. “I’ll hold her off.”

“How?” Tiff hissed.

“Successfully.”

The bookshelves they leaned against started rumbling again, and more books flew out into this corridor. “ _Now_ ,” Sucy said, putting just a _bit_ more force than usual into her words. She stood in front of the array of books and tapped the Cane of Melissa with her wand, and it shivered with magic before lengthening—from a cane to a quarterstaff.

The books lined up in front of Sucy, ready to fire.

“What are you doing to the _Cane_ of _Melissa_ —”

That was as far as Tiffany got before Akko grabbed her hand and yanked her away. “Get on your broom, _now_ ,” Akko said.

Another shriek smashed into Tiff’s ears, and she looked behind her to see that the ghost had rounded the corner, and it appeared to have fangs now. She felt pretty well convinced. “Come on!” she yelled, and jumped on her broom, and for _once_ she took off first try with no back-sass.

Tiff glanced under herself and saw Akko and Lotte running away beneath her, and behind them, the spirit flinging yet _more_ books at Sucy. It didn’t seem to have enough: Sucy was holding her ground and blocking every missile with a spin of her staff, whirling it like a propeller. It was _hypnotic_ , watching her from behind like this, and Tiffany lost track of where she was going for several seconds—

The spirit shrieked again and threw a solid _wall_ of books at Sucy. Sucy reached into her robe and pulled out a glittering vial, and threw it at the wall—it exploded upon contact, burning a hole through the books. Sucy turned to the side, easily fitting through the hole she’d made.

Tiff was so entranced by the display that she almost missed the other vial, shining in the moonlight as it flew through the air and landed without shattering on a nearby bookshelf. It must have flown out by mistake when Sucy pulled out the other one. Tiff flew toward it—the least she could do was pick it up, right?

And then Sucy froze. Her staff stopped whirling, and she hesitated for several seconds before patting down the front of her robes. “No, no,” she seemed to be saying, “where is it? Where _is it_ —”

A flung book struck her in the forehead, knocking her down. She barely seemed to notice, and flopped over on her front, scavenging the floor ahead of her for… _the potion_ , Tiff realized. That had to be what she was looking for.

Tiffany swung around in an arc, leaned over to her left to snatch the potion off the top of the shelf, and yelled, “Grab on!” as her arc hurtled toward Sucy. Sucy looked up, her eyes widened, and she clamped a hand around the end of the broom as it flew past, yanking her into the air. Not a second later, several encyclopedias struck the ground where she’d lain, hard enough to shatter their spines.

As Sucy pulled herself to a sitting position, her eyes were still wide and panicked, still looking around desperately. “I found this—” Tiff started to say, holding the vial up.

Sucy grabbed the vial with enough force that her nails cut into Tiff’s hand. “Ow!” she said, as Sucy slipped the potion into an unseen spot inside her robe. “You’re welcome.”

“Don’t touch that,” Sucy said, her voice clipped. “Just fly.”

_Right._

She _did_ have a point. Tiff swerved to the right, then yelped as a thrown sword—who was storing _swords_ in the library?—flew through the space where she’d just been. She dived low, down to the level where Akko and Lotte were still sprinting. “What do we do?” Tiff yelled.

“We need to lose it!” Akko pointed forward. “There! The doors to the stairwell upstairs!” She increased her pace, closed the distance to the door, and wrenched it open—

The ghost shrieked from within that stairwell.

Akko slammed the door. “Nope!” she yelled, running the other way with barely a second’s hesitation. Lotte turned tail with similar speed, and Sucy slid off the Shooting Star to follow them. Tiffany and the Shooting Star brought up the rear—at least at first, for the Star’s speed let it and Tiff easily overtake the other three….

It felt like gears were whirring in Tiff’s head. Neurons fired toward some conclusion she wasn’t certain of yet. Five of them investigating a spooky ghost in a haunted library where the shelves all looked the same. Lots of running, either chasing or fleeing the ghost. Shenanigans involving doors….

Something in her head went ding, and if her broom hadn’t been self-propelling, she probably would have screeched to a halt. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “This is literally just Scooby Doo.”

Akko looked up at her. “ _What?_ ”


	11. Shooting Star, There You Are! (2)

They’d escaped, for the present.

After what felt like five more minutes of increasingly convoluted chasing, they’d all hidden on an outdoor balcony, holding their breaths until they were sure the ghost wasn’t following. Then they started heaving breaths instead.

“Sucy,” Lotte gasped, “where did you learn to do that with a staff?”

“An adventurous childhood.” Sucy sucked in a final long breath, let it out, and she was still once more.

Tiffany somehow felt as winded as the rest of them, despite how she’d been flying and they’d been running. “And what was so special,” she started, “about that potion—”

“ _More importantly_ ,” Sucy blurted out. She narrowed her eyes at Tiff. “What’s a Scooby Doo?”

“Uh…. Hm.” Tiff frowned. “It’s Scooby Doo. How have you not heard of one of the most famous cartoons… _ever?_ ”

Akko let a little hissing sound escape her teeth. “She’s Filipina, she’s Finnish, and I’m Japanese, remember? We didn’t all watch the same cartoons as kids.”

“Right. Okay.” Deep breath. Rubbing her forehead with her thumb, Tiff said, “So it’s about these teenagers and their pet dog, and they go around and solve mysteries and run away from ghosts. It was my favorite show when I was younger.”

The three of them cocked their heads.

“One of them, Fred, was the sort of informal leader of the gang, and I guess I never really got why that was, since he was kind of dumb and his plans didn’t work.”

“He sounds great,” Akko said.

“There was Velma… she was the bookish one with the glasses. She was the one who seemed to have the best idea of what was going on… I don’t know, though, it sometimes felt like she didn’t want to be there. Oh, and she said ‘jinkies’ for whatever reason.”

“Jinkies?” Lotte asked, looking shiftily from side to side.

“Daphne was the pretty one out of the group… and I guess I don’t remember much else about her,” Tiff said, tapping her chin. “I think they gave her some crazy martial arts skills out of nowhere in the later versions, but other than that she was just really, um….”

“Why are you staring at me,” Sucy said in a flat voice.

“ _And—_ ” Tiff stuttered for a few seconds. “There was Shaggy and Scooby. Scooby wasn’t a teenager, he was just this pet that could… talk for some reason. They _never_ explained that. Well, maybe in some of the newer ones. And Shaggy—that’s actually a nickname, he had a real name but no one ever seemed to call him that—he was always with Scooby, he was the one who _definitely_ didn’t want to be there and kind of had to be forced into it, and he was always the least comfortable with… oh no.”

“What?” Akko said, stepping forward with a concerned look.

Tiff buried her face in her hands. “I’m Shaggy.”

After a few seconds of face-holding, Tiffany sighed a breath in and out, then peered at the broom that still hovered at her side. “Which I guess makes _you_ Scooby Doo… not an exact match, since you can’t talk, but fine.”

The Star tilted inquisitively.

She looked up to see the rest of them still staring at her. “Sorry,” she said, scratching her neck, “I just really liked those cartoons when I was younger. It was nice because it felt like they always won, and they were always friends, and nothing ever changed, and—”

“And I now regret asking,” Sucy said, turning away and slouching.

Tiff shut up, feeling a bit like a daffodil in an acid bath.

“ _Sucy_ ,” Akko said. “It’s okay,” she added, glancing at Tiff, “everyone’s got something they still love from when they were kids. Or at least _most_ of us do,” she muttered.

Sucy rolled her eyes away from Akko.

“So, back on track,” Akko said. “Lotte, you’re the ghost-thing-knower.”

“Expert. And—”

“Yeah, that. Tell us what we need to do to get rid of it.”

“Well, I…” Lotte bent down and picked up a book. “This is the book that she—the ghost—was taking words out of. And I think…” She unfurled the book, leafed through it for a few seconds, then nodded. “Aha. Look at this!”

They looked. The pages were blank. “Okay,” said Sucy, “real helpful.”

“No, I mean—look.” Lotte tapped the number in the corner of the book. “Page 137. And if we look at the chapter index for the book….” She flipped back to the beginning, and said, “That means the words she was absorbing were about….”

_The Founding of Luna Nova Academy_ , read the chapter heading.

“I think Sucy’s right,” Lotte said excitedly. “I think that this ghost, whoever she is, is from the time of the founding of the academy, and she’s forgotten who she is, but she’s trying to find out. And if we can help her do that, if we can find her name, then we can—”

“Banish the ghost forever!” Akko threw her arms over Lotte and Sucy’s shoulders. “Lotte, you’re a genius! We’ll beat this poltergeist for sure!”

Lotte jumped a little at the sudden exclamation, but smiled. “Yeah, for sure.” Sucy gave a little nod of her own and patted Akko’s back.

Tiff just watched. _They always won, and they were always friends, and nothing ever…._

She turned away, gritting her teeth a little.

_Nothing ever changed._

“All right, gang,” Akko said. “Let’s split up and look for clues!”

Tiff gritted her teeth a little _more_. “I can’t believe you just said that,” she said, turning back to face the group. “That is, like, the _biggest_ cliche in the show, other than—”

“We’ll figure out who this ghost is,” Akko said, putting her hands over Lotte and Sucy’s shoulders, “and once we do, we’ll lure her into a trap!”

“—other than the traps,” Tiff finished, putting her face in her hand. “Which _never_ work, by the way.” She sighed, then looked up at Akko. “How are we splitting up? Can I go with Sucy?” she added, almost under her breath.

Sucy rolled her eyes with such force that her head rolled too. “How about no.”

“How about,” Akko said, glancing sidelong at Sucy, “I go with her and you go with Lotte?”

Tiff sighed again and hopped on the Shooting Star. “Fine.”

“Then let’s get going!” Akko said. “Send sparks up if you need anything!”

There were two doors off the balcony: Akko and Sucy took the one to the right, leaving Lotte and Tiff with the one on the left. “Shaggy _never_ got to go with Daphne in the cartoons, _either_ ,” Tiff muttered.

“What?” Lotte said.

“Nothing!”

* * *

Books.

So. Many. _Books._

Even at the best of times, Akko had never been a huge fan of them. Even one year after joining the academy, even after accepting (however grudgingly) that she’d need to focus on her textbooks to be a great witch, there were few things that made her zone out into daydream-land faster than reading a book.

And now she was looking through _all_ of them.

“Nope,” she said, flipping through _The Theory of Evolution in Magical Creatures_ long enough to confirm that it didn’t have any of its words missing and throwing it— _almost_ throwing it. What if she’d missed a blank section on a page? She went through it again, _slower_ this time, and verified that none of its text had been stolen. “Yeah, _nope_. Not this one either.”

She dropped the book and rested her head against the cool bookshelf, as if trying to drain out some of the sludge that filled her brain just by _skimming_ these _boring_ old books. “Having any luck, Sucy?”

“Did you know,” Sucy said from the other side of the aisle, holding a book in one hand and her borrowed staff in the other, “that the plant species _Dendrocnide moroides_ is sometimes called the ‘suicide plant’, because the sting of its tiny needles is so painful that it makes people want to kill themselves?”

Akko sighed. “Does that mean you haven’t found anything?”

“I’ve found some _fascinating_ books on botany. But no, nothing a ghost looked through.” Sucy’s book thudded to the floor with a sound as dull as her voice.

Akko sighed, and glanced along the aisle they’d chosen at random. Whole shelves of books were on the floor behind the pair of them. “This is _dumb_ ,” she said, smacking the shelf. “Why are we acting like the ghost is gonna put the books _back_ after unwording them? We should just be looking for books on the floor!”

She kicked the shelf for added emphasis. “This is _dumb!_ ”

“Of course it is,” Sucy said, nose deep in another book entitled _Nature’s Most Toxic Predators_. “It was your idea!” She snickered.

Akko whirled around. “Stop it!”

Sucy’s smirk was just barely visible on the sides of her face.

“No, really, I mean it! Stop!” Akko’s eyes were narrow and her teeth were gritted. “You’ve had this bug up your butt all day about something, and it’s enough now!”

“I’m just being my usual lovable self.” Sucy stretched, holding the book above her head as if presenting it to a crowd. The smile was still there, but fading.

“Sucy, I _do_ like you. But not right _now_. What’s your problem?”

And _now_ it was all the way gone. “Who says I have a problem? Besides you.”

“Picking that fight with Amanda? Calling me stupid _all_ night? It’s not normal, and it’s _enough!_ ”

“Amanda was literally asking for it,” Sucy muttered. “And we both know you’re dumb. Stop making a big deal out of this.”

“You were even mean to Tiffany after she got you back your potion!”

Sucy stopped moving.

Then, like some freaky clockwork statue, her head creaked around to look at Akko. “ _You saw that?_ ” she whispered, her eyes pinpricks.

“Of… of course I did.’ Akko’s head tilted to the side. “I was looking behind me to see if you were okay.” Well, if she hadn’t been sure if something was wrong before, she sure was now.

Sucy’s stare continued unblinking, unabated, for several seconds. Then she whirled around and set off at a brisk walk down the aisle. “You’re right,” she said.

“I’m… what?”

“The ghost wouldn’t have put the book back in the shelf. We should get moving.”

“Wait, no—I mean, yes, but—don’t walk away from this!” Akko said, chasing after her. “You can’t just be a _jerk_ all the time and not expect anyone to say anything about it, Sucy! Get back here!”

Sucy broke into a run. “Where are you going?” Akko called, forgetting for a moment the whole deal about wanting to be quiet so the ghost didn’t hear them. “What was that potion? Come on, tell me!”

Sucy turned a corner, several shelves ahead of her. Akko turned the same corner and saw Sucy standing there, looming like a scarecrow, staring right at Akko. She jumped.

“What is _your_ problem?” Sucy whispered, eyes narrowed so that lines bunched up beneath her eyes. “Don’t we have something _better_ to be doing? Like catching a _ghost_ before it brutally bludgeons someone to death?”

Akko rolled her eyes briefly. “The ghost can wait, and you know that. But _you_ … I don’t _get_ you.”

Sucy kept staring, but the lines under her eyes started to flatten out. “I don’t _get_ why you do the things you do,” Akko continued. “You’re one of my three best friends in the world, and I know barely _anything_ about you. Isn’t that screwed up?”

Akko flung her arms up. “Seriously, what’s _with_ that? I don’t know why you’re so into potions, I don’t know why you like being a _jerk_ so much of the time, and I definitely don’t know why you’re being such a jerk _tonight!_ So why can’t you just _tell me?_ ”

She took a breath. Sucy’s stare wasn’t angry anymore: it had become completely neutral. “Do you wanna know?” she said.

“Yeah, of course!”

“Do you really, really….” Sucy took a breath, held it, and let it out. “ _Really_ want to know?”

“Have you _met_ me?” Akko narrowed her eyes. “That’s the only way I’ve ever wanted anything _ever_.”

Sucy broke eye contact for a few seconds. She looked up at the ceiling, and seemed to be clenching her jaw, nodding her head back and forth. Perhaps lost in thought? Her lips moved, and Akko thought she lipread the words, “Had to happen sometime.” Before Akko could think to ask, though, Sucy turned away and… started perusing the shelves.

“What—what are you doing?” Akko took a step forward. “We were having a _conversation_ , we were gonna reach a breakthrough and now you’re—”

“Read this.”

The book was shoved into her face so hard that if Akko had been standing one step closer, it would have knocked her out. In any case, she flinched, then peered around it to look at Sucy, but Sucy’s eyes were fixed on the shelf as if trying to bore a hole through it.

Akko took the book, which Sucy had opened to a specific point in the middle. With one finger keeping her place, she closed the book to look at the cover: _Indigenous Magics of Southeast Asia_. Frowning, she opened it again and started from the top of the left page.

_… but most feared of all is the Manbabarang, practitioner of the art of Barang. In legends the mambabarang keeps his swarm of carnivorous beetles in a bottle or a section of bamboo, carefully feeding them ginger root. When the practitioner decides to employ his dark art, he performs a prayer ritual wherein he whispers instructions and identifies the victim…._

“What the heck does this have to do with… wait.” Akko frowned, then let her eyes scroll back up. “Mambabarang,” she read aloud. “ _Man-ba-bar-ang_ —you’re Sucy _Man-ba-var-an!_ This sounds almost exactly like your last name! Wow,” she said, letting her arm drop, “what a crazy coincidence.”

Sucy stared again, mouth slightly open. “Akko… _no_ , it’s not a coincidence. If even a _single_ person at Luna Nova spoke Bisaya, they’d have figured out that my last name… _isn’t_ one. It just means ‘witch’. I’m Sucy the Witch.”

Akko’s mouth opened a little.

“Remember how I wasn’t planning on actually staying at Luna Nova at first? I only wrote Manbavaran down in my application letter so I could come here for a short while, I wasn’t actually supposed to… _stay_.”

Her flat look seemed to imply that Akko should have guessed this years ago, even having only known her for one year. “That wasn’t part of the plan,” Sucy continued, looking down at the ground. “You and Lotte weren’t how this was supposed to go.”

“But….” Akko was squinting now. “If that’s not your real last name, what is?”

“Don’t have one.” Sucy’s monotone sounded more tired than ever. “I only got a first name when I got thrown out.”

Akko blinked a few times. “When you got _what_?”

“Sixteen-ish years ago.” Still looking at the floor, Sucy reached inside her robes. “I got found at an orphanage. There was nothing but me, and _this_ ,” she said, pulling out a small vial, spherical in shape, which she thrust toward Akko.

Akko tried to take it, but Sucy didn’t let go, so she settled for looking at it instead. The glass was finely crafted—not exactly spherical upon closer inspection, but a near-sphere made of hundreds of tiny triangles, a miniature geodesic dome. The whole thing was half-full of some viscous green liquid that bubbled as if over a flame. The cork at the top had a pin through it, one which held a scrap of paper to the cork. On that paper was a faded message in an alphabet Akko didn’t recognize: something Asian, probably?

Sucy pulled back her arm. “In case you’re wondering, it says, ‘For Sucy’.” She swished the vial around a few times, letting the tiny bubbles burst within. “Whoever made this was some sort of poison-making genius. No one’s ever been able to figure out what it does if you drink it. Not even me, and I’ve been trying for _ten_. _Years_.”

She returned the vial to the bottomless pockets of her robe, then straightened her head and looked at Akko. “Because that’s all I have of whoever left me there. That’s my _only_ lead.”

“That’s why you’re so obsessed with potions,” Akko whispered. She took a step forward. “That’s why you never talk about yourself. Oh, _Sucy_ ….”

“Please don’t hug me,” Sucy began, but it was far, far too late.

Akko enveloped her in a crushing hug, her face buried in Sucy’s shoulder. Sucy’s arms remained at her sides. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Akko mumbled. “Why didn’t you tell Lotte? We could have _helped_ you!”

“Didn’t want to,” Sucy said, her voice a little quieter than normal. “You were too obsessed with your Shiny Rod. You wouldn’t have cared. You’d have….” She trailed off, mumbling something that sounded strangely like, “ _laughed at me_ ”.

“I would _never!_ ” Akko didn’t let go of Sucy, but she did straighten up, allowing her to look her friend in the eyes. “You’re so passionate about this that you’ve been searching for it for _ten years_! I would _never_ laugh at that kind of dedication to making your dream come true!” She pulled Sucy close again. “And I’m not laughing now either, you hear me?”

It took several long seconds, but finally, Akko felt Sucy’s arms rise up a little behind her. Just enough to gently touch behind her back.

Finally, Akko pulled away. “If you want _any_ help at all,” she said, “just say the word and I’ll be there. And… don’t keep this kind of stuff bottled up for a year, okay? I’m trying to be a better friend, I’ve got my schedule and everything, but it’s not gonna _work_ if we don’t tell each other things!” She stuck out her fist. “You’ve gotta promise me, if this kind of thing is eating at you, to tell me or Lotte. Okay?”

Sucy considered the fist for a few seconds, then bumped it with her own. “Okay. But we do actually have a ghost to deal with, so….”

She turned around. Beaming, Akko followed her. “Seriously, though!” she continued at Sucy’s back, which—she noticed—looked a little less tense than usual. “What kind of friendship would this be if we never told each other when we were upset?”

* * *

“ _Oh my gooooooosh!_ ” Lotte squealed, like a high-pitched and annoying bell. “A complete _compendium_ of the Nightfall _unabridged_ series! _With the original illustrations!_ ”

“Yes, fascinating,” Tiffany said without looking, or thinking for that matter. She held her wand out in front of her, using a basic lighting spell for some illumination. The Shooting Star hovered at her side, ready for her to bolt at the moment the ghost showed up. Which wasn’t very nice to Lotte, perhaps. Maybe she’d grab the girl too.

“ _Oh my gosh, it’s the original source of the continuity debate about Belle’s earring!_ ” Lotte gasped so loudly that it set Tiff’s teeth on edge. She yanked a book from the shelf and opened it under Tiffany’s nose. “You see, this illustration from part one hundred and seven has her earring as _sapphire_ , but the one time it’s described in the book, they say it’s made of _emeraldine_ , a magical gemstone that usually comes in a glowing _green_ color... “She petered off. “Are you… no, of course you’re not listening.”

“What?” Somehow, Tiff could _hear_ her shoulders slump. She looked around to see Lotte returning the book to the shelf, the motion showing less than half the energy her manic rant had done. “Oh, sorry. I was… distracted.”

“I understand.” Lotte breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth, and then turned to face Tiffany with a bright smile on her face. “I know not everyone’s as much of a diehard fan as I am.”

“No, not… not that.” Tiffany looked to the side. “Well, okay,” she admitted, “also that. But for the most part….”

_They always won, and they were always friends, and nothing ever changed._

“You three just seem really close, is all.” She turned away and started walking. “Let’s get moving. If we can find the ghost’s name, we can be out of here.”

“No need to tell me twice.” Lotte laughed nervously, then hurried forward until she was walking alongside Tiff. “Are you okay? Believe me, I know this sort of thing can be frightening if you’re not used to it.”

“I’m not frightened.”

“I used to be.” Lotte smiled down at her—even Lotte, the _shortest_ of them, was taller than Tiff, and it was _infuriating_ —and she seemed to be resisting an urge to ruffle Tiff’s hair. “Akko or Sucy, or both of them if it was a really bad day, used to drag me into all sorts of crazy situations. Well, I say ‘used to’—I suppose it’s pretty obvious that they never actually stopped.”

She stopped talking for several seconds, and they walked in a quiet measured out by footfalls.

“But the thing is, even if things were terrifying or awful or… detention, I was doing them with friends, so it wasn’t all bad,” she said at last. “But none of your friends are here—I know you know Akko, but it’s not the same—so I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Tiff said, marching ahead at renewed speed to outpace Lotte. “It’s just that there’s a ghost in here who wants to bludgeon us to death, and that is _certainly_ enough of a problem to put a young witch on edge without _any_ outside intervention. It has nothing to do with you, it has nothing to do with friends—” her footsteps were coming as stomps now “—and it has nothing at _all_ to do with Alice.”

“I didn’t mention Alice.”

Tiff didn’t stop dead. She kept going out of momentum for several more steps, like a steam train whose boiler had imploded, before finally coming to a halt.

“Akko mentioned her. You know she’s really looking out for you, right?” Something about Lotte’s voice sounded like the warm voice Tiffany’s mother always used, when she wanted to get something out of someone. “Akko was really hoping you two would make up at the broom race last week. But… if it’s still bothering you, do you want to talk about—”

“ _I don’t know what I did wrong!_ ”

Tiffany’s teeth were gritted. She’d tried not to think about it for a week, and now the dam was fracturing and everything was bursting out. “I know what she _thinks_ I did wrong. And I know that _she’s_ wrong to think it! I tried to _help_ her for _six years of my stupid life_ and then, overnight, she decided that that was a _bad_ thing to do! And _I’m_ supposed to be in the _wrong_ here?”

She whirled around and saw that Lotte was backing away. Tiffany forced herself to take a deep breath before continuing. “Look. We were best friends since we were little kids, and we had a plan: we were going to be the best witches in the world. _Alice_ was going to be the best with a wand, and _I_ was going to be the best with a broom. It was foolproof.

“And then, out of nowhere, right before her ninth birthday, she got sick. So sick that she could barely do any magic at all. No one knew why. So the plan had to change.” Tiff sucked in a breath, gradually let it out. “I had to become the best witch with a wand, because otherwise how was I going to find out what happened to her? How could I fix it?”

She growled. Why were there tears in her eyes? She wasn’t sad, she was _furious!_ “Literal years of my life. Actually _two fifths_ of my life! And she just decides, oh, who cares about being _cured_ of my _horrible chronic disease_ when I can _jog_ and get my _back_ stuck full of needles!?” She threw her hands in the air with frustration, then slowly let them fall. “I spent _years_ for her. And she just _left_ me. Alone.”

It took a few seconds for her to recollect herself. Once she had, she saw that Lotte was several steps away, smiling faintly—a sad smile. “Sorry,” Tiff said, shrugging uneasily. “But thanks for… thank you for listening. I think that was a big load on my mind, and... it was good to get that off my chest.”

“Oh, no problem.” Lotte smiled, and started walking past her. “Any time. I guess it was a lot though. Jinkies.” She laughed a little.

“Oh, okay.” Tiffany made a little _hm_ noise. “It’s just that I feel a little bad about dumping all of that on you—I barely know you. I don’t suppose there’s anything _you_ want to talk about?”

Lotte laughed again. “Oh, that’s not how this works.”

“Beg pardon?”

Lotte turned her head and smiled back at her, just as sweetly. “I listen to other people’s issues. Not the other way around.” With the way the moon hit her glasses, Tiffany couldn’t see her eyes.

Lotte turned back around, turned a corner, and gasped. “Tiff, look at this!”

Shelving any thoughts about Lotte’s previous statement for later—or possibly never, who knew—Tiff hurried ahead. Lying on the floor at the end of a nearby bookshelf, she saw a gigantic book that had carelessly been left open. Even from a distance, it was easy to see the words were missing.

Not a huge number of them, though. “‘Each of the honored founders of this school left as their legacy a unique virtue, which Luna Nova has tried to cultivate. Whether it was’—” Lotte stopped reading aloud for a moment, for a word was clearly absent. “‘Whether it was insert-word-here the Affectionate, whose healing magic and kindness have proved an example to all who walk these hallowed halls; insert-word-here the Professor, whose patient guidance led many students to greatness, or insert-word-here the Motherly....”

Lotte looked up. “Is ‘professor’ a virtue, or just a title?”

“Woodward.”

“Pardon me?” Lotte said, glancing her way.

“Woodward the Professor.. Beatrix the Affectionate, Lucretia the Motherly.” Tiffany snatched the book from Lotte’s hands and read the rest. “That’s Scarlette, that’s Scholastica, Tlahuelpuchi, Groa, Han Lanying, and Atikah!” She sniffed. “All out of order, too. Who _wrote_ this tripe?”

Lotte kept staring at her.

“Do you not have them memorized?” Tiff stared right back. “They’re the Nine Olde Witches! They’re kind of a large deal! Or… do you mean something else—”

She looked past Lotte and jumped in surprise: there was another book on the floor. And another, and another. Tiff picked each up, flipped through them, and quickly confirmed exactly which words were missing.

“There was plenty of other stuff going on in the world of magic at the same time that the Nine Olde Witches were around. But this ghost isn’t interested in any of that.” She let the pages of _A Chronology of the First Millennium of Witchcraft_ fall like a flipbook, showing that no words were missing from them. “Only in _these nine witches_.”

Lotte’s eyes widened. “Do you think….”

“It’s almost _blasphemous_ to suggest….” Tiff gasped. “The ghost we’re trying to exorcise was one of the _Nine Old Witches_!”

“Or she knew them, or….” Lotte shook her head. “Nevermind. That makes the most sense.”

“We need to contact Akko right away!” And with that, Tiffany raised her wand and whispered, “ _Pharus!_ ” A second later, as an immediately identifiable stream of sparks burst from her wand with an appropriate twinkling noise to mark her position, she wondered why she’d bothered whispering.

It took roughly a minute, but Tiff finally heard the approaching footsteps. Akko hurled herself around the corner, followed longly by Sucy at her usual graceful pace. “Saw the sparks,” Akko said. “What happened?”

“We—” Lotte began.

“We think the ghost is one of the Nine Olde Witches.” Tiffany shoved one of the books at Akko. “The missing names are _their_ names. If we can just narrow it down a little further….”

“Hmm.” Akko took the book. “Well, it’s not Beatrix or Woodward. I’ve _met_ them, they’re nice… usually. So that just leaves seven of them, and I don’t remember their names.”

“You don’t remember their—” Tiffany raised a finger, realized she should _probably_ be more concerned about Akko having _met two of the Nine Olde Witches_ , and gave up. “I know all their names,” she muttered.

“Great! In that case, I have an idea.”

Tiff glanced up and saw the gleam in Akko’s eye. “Please don’t say we’re going to set a trap.”

* * *

This was how they’d set their trap.

“I should have held out for a Scooby Snack,” Tiffany grumbled, as she flew aimlessly through the library, the Shooting Star loose in her grasp. She probably would have protested the use of “aimlessly”, however: it was just that her aim was… everywhere and anywhere. They hadn’t been keeping track of the ghost, so it was her job to canvas the whole library and find—

_There._

The floating book flapped in front of a bookshelf on the second floor, apparently perusing the spines of its potential victims. Tiffany would have felt a bit angrier about the word theft it was perpetrating, were she not so preoccupied with the embarrassment of what she was about to do.

“Hey!” she yelled.

The book froze. It turned to face her, and shortly thereafter grew its face. The two dots and mouth that rose out of the mist looked less happy than before, but also less murderous, and… well, she couldn’t have that.

“Hey, um, you!” Tiff urged the Shooting Star to lift her up, face to face with the ghost. “Did you know that… you’re a stupid ghost? And no one likes you? I talked to your friends, and they said you were, um….” _Wow,_ it was late. She heaved a yawn, with the words, “Am I doing it right?” mixed in as her eyes closed.

When she opened her eyes, the ghost was glowing red.

“I guess I’m doing it right. Zoinks, etcetera.” She spun the Shooting Star around, the ghost _shrieking_ its nonexistent head off behind her, and leaned low over the handle. In a tone of the most abject trope-mandated dejection, she muttered, “Like, run for it, Scoob.”

Being the bait _stank_.

Tiff, if pressed, might have even gone so far as to say it _sucked_. And it was less because the ghost was rushing after her, hurling books at her head in an attempt to render her unconscious. It wasn’t the near misses either, although the books that whizzed by her head and occasionally clipped her ears didn’t help her mood.

It was the _speed_. The ghost was fast, sure, but the Shooting Star was _really really_ fast. And the plan didn’t _allow_ her to go _really really_ fast, or the ghost would lose her. So Tiffany sighed, tried to suppress a yawn, and continued down what felt like the slowest aerial chase in history.

Just before a book whanged her in the back of the head.

“ _Ow!_ ” Tiffany rubbed her skull, looking back over her shoulder at the spectre of death which annoyingly pursued her. “Okay, tough girl. You want to see who’s the better flier?”

They’d both been wanting it—Tiffany and the Shooting Star alike. She leaned forward and cut loose. The next time she looked back, a whole second later, the ghost was nearly ought of sight.

_Let’s show her what we can really do._

“Yeah, that’s what I thought!” Tiff veered back, taunting the ghost by turning down the speed as she approached—but as soon as books were flung at her, she dove hard and rolled to avoid them. “I bet you’re not even a real ghost, you… hologram perpetrated by a disgruntled real estate mogul!”

The ghost shrieked. Tiff found it difficult to be frightened at this point. “Got anything else to say?” she yelled, literally flying circles around the ghost as it pursued her. With more time, she’d be flying _spheres_ around the thing.

_Up_.

She went up, and a book sailed under her.

_Back_.

Back she dived, looping over the ghost. And on and on, more and more, and Tiffany laughed. It was like she and the broom were _connected_ , like they were _one entity_ —

“Tiff!”

That was Akko, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Tiff, stop doing barrel rolls and stick to the plan!”

“They’re _aileron_ rolls!” Tiff shot back, upside-down over the ghost’s ‘body’.

“Just _get over here!_ ”

“Oh, for—all right, fine!” The moment had been ruined already. Still fully in control, but lacking that transcendent feeling of _oneness_ somehow, of _communication_ —Tiffany pulled back on the broom, enough to slow it down. She flew the rest of the way at a relative crawl, staying low to the floor and making the minimal effort to dodge each thrown book. The ghost stayed behind her, its attention solely focused on trying to strike her.

At length, Tiff reached the bookshelves she was aiming for and rounded the corner, and stopped in midair. And thus began the second phase of the trap.

“Wait for it,” Akko whispered, perched atop one of the bookshelves, her eyes pinned to the ghost. “Wait for it.”

The ghost rounded the corner and shrieked. Tiffany didn’t move.

“ _Wait for it._ ”

The ghost rushed at her.

“ _Now!_ ”

Lotte and Sucy sprang from their hiding places behind the shelves and yelled, together, “ _Insidiatori!_ ”

The twin beams of light from their wands met in the center, right where the ghost was. A crystalline lattice of lightning surrounded the ghost. She shrieked again, but her voice was muted behind the buzzing of her cage. The book flew forward, struck the lattice, and rebounded off, sparks flying from the point of impact.

“Good work, team!” Akko hopped down from the shelf, rolling as she landed. When she stood up, she shoved her pointer finger at the ghost like a prosecutor in a video game. “We know you’re one of seven possible people, and we’re gonna keep reading names until you vanish!”

As the shriek returned, Akko rummaged at her belt for a scrap of paper that Tiffany had given her. She held it up and squinted, then declared, “Atikah!”

No response, other than the continued wails of the spirit.

“No? How about.... Scarlette!” Akko waited a few seconds. “No? Um….” She held the scrap closer to her face. “Tiff, what does this even _say?_ I can’t read your handwriting! Sho… sholast….”

“Scholastica!” Tiff called out. “And you’re reading them out of order!”

“The order doesn’t _matter!_ ”

“They’re the Nine Olde Witches, of _course_ it—just let _me_ do it!”

“Akko!” Lotte yelled, barely audible over the ghost’s screams. Her hold on her wand was shaky, as if trying to grip a jackhammer; it jerked and bucked as it kept feeding magic into the ghost’s cage. “This doesn’t feel right! She’s in pain!”

“It’ll be at peace soon!” Akko yelled back, and she held up the paper anew. “Han Lanying? Groa? Tlahuel—”

The ghost’s ‘mouth’ opened so wide that its whole misty form was just _black_ , letting out its loudest shriek yet. All other sound was obliterated. Akko’s grip on the paper was immediately relinquished as her hands went to her ears, pressing hard enough that she seemed to be trying to crush her skull.

Tiffany went to her knees, barely able to see with how her eyes were screwed up. Looking up with all her strength, she saw Sucy hold onto her wand, albeit with her teeth gritted. Lotte, however, collapsed with her hands on her ears and her body in the fetal position. The cage holding the ghost fizzled—faded—vanished.

The bookshelves around them rumbled. They tilted inward, and they fell.

The next thing Tiffany knew, Sucy was dashing toward the middle of them, pulling a vial from her bottomless pocket, smashing it on the ground—

* * *

When Tiffany came to—and she _had_ to have passed out, because she hadn’t been face-first on the ground earlier—the first thing she noticed was the ringing, of course. Her ears were still shrilling with the echoes of the ghost’s screams.

The second thing she noticed was the smell. Sort of… _damp_ , like a bog.

The third thing, as she pushed herself up to a kneel, was the giant mushroom.

“Good thinking, Sucy,” Akko probably said—it was a little hard to tell, what with the ringing, but Tiffany made her best guess. She looked down at the base of the giant mushroom and saw the shattered remains of one of Sucy’s potion vials; then she looked up and saw the mushroom’s huge cap.

She also saw the bookshelves, all leaning upon and supported by the mushroom. If not for Sucy’s quick thinking, they’d have all been crushed. As it was, books were scattered everywhere around them, and some seemed to be covering Lotte and Akko’s legs.

Tiff shook her head, trying to clear out the ringing. It seemed to be working—or maybe the sound was going away on its own. Who knew.

Akko pounded the ground with her fist. “Now who _knows_ where that dumb ghost is? We were so _close_ , too—it’s got to be either Tlahuelpuchi or Lucretia!”

“Girls?” said Lotte.

“You know what? Whatever. We’re going to find that ghost and we’re going to _name_ it!” Akko pushed herself to a slightly more upright position, pulled her wand out of her belt, and aimed it at the nearest piece of furniture. “ _Bella mediae!_ ”

The jet of magic struck the shelf with concussive force, sending it flying back. More books fell from the other shelves, and Tiffany cringed as the noise hit her already-pained ears, but they had a clear path out now.

“Girls,” Lotte said again, “something’s wrong.”

Akko looked back. “Oh, of course. You’re covered in books!” She reached for Lotte’s outstretched hand, grabbed it, and started pulling her out from under the mushroom and books.

“Not that!” Lotte shoved Akko’s hand away and got to her feet herself. “Something feels really wrong!”

“What _doesn’t_ feel wrong about this?” Tiffany declared, shoving herself to her feet. “We’re trying to banish a ghost from a school it probably helped _found_ , we’re breaking every noise rule in the library to do it, and—” She glanced back at the giant mushroom, and the piles of books under their fallen bookshelves “—we’re probably doing more damage than the ghost itself, just to try to get rid of it!”

“No, listen to me! I mean—” Lotte sucked in a breath, and her face went blank. “Yes. That’s what I mean.”

Sucy was the last one out from under the mushroom, still holding her borrowed staff. “We getting going or what?”

“Yes, we’re getting going!” Akko pointed dramatically forward, as if she knew where they were going. “Come on, gang! Only a little longer before we’re done here!”

* * *

_Ssh_ , said the voice in Lotte’s head.

She would have hyperventilated if she still had full control of her lungs. Suddenly, it was easy to pinpoint _exactly_ what was wrong: the book, pressed into the skin of her back beneath her vest and shirt, where it had slipped in during all the tumult. The voice in her head, and in the rest of her body too, that seemed to be taking control.

_Ssh_ , it said. _Let me do it, Lotte._

She tried to make a noise, yell a warning, anything. Her body walked mechanically forward.

_They didn’t listen when you said it before. Why would they listen now?_ The voice sounded bitter. _Your friends leave you behind often, don’t they, Lotte?_

This was the most frightening thing: Lotte wanted to nod—and she didn’t know if she wanted it, or the _ghost_ wanted it for her.

_Doesn’t it make you mad that they don’t listen? That they treat you like dirt? Aren’t you angry?_

Her eyes were wide, and if her pupils were still obeying her, she knew they would be pinpricks of terror.

_Let’s tell them how we feel._


	12. Shooting Star, There You Are! (3)

“So the difference is,” Tiffany said, looking sternly at Akko, “an _aileron_ roll spins the witch around the axis of the broom’s handle. A _barrel_ roll involves rotation on multiple axes, so you do a roll _and_ a loop. Like you’re going around the inside of a _barrel_. It’s the easiest thing in the world to remember!”

“Okay?” Akko squinted. “Then why is it called an… airelon? Airelon roll?”

“ _Aileron_. Because a plane uses its _ailerons_ to complete the maneuver.”

“But we’re not flying a plane.” 

“Unimportant! The _point_ is—”

“Shut up about flying.”

The voice wasn’t Tiffany’s or Akko’s. It wasn’t even Sucy’s. Tiffany and Akko turned, slowly and together, to look back at Lotte. “Um.” Akko frowned. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, acting like you care now.” Lotte stood stock-still, looking down at the floor. The moonlight on her glasses obscured her eyes. “I see how it is.”

Sucy stepped toward her. “Lotte—”

“ _I didn’t want to come here._ ”

For several seconds, at long last, there was true silence in the library. Even so, Lotte’s words—it wasn’t so much _what_ she was saying as much as the simple _hurt_ in _how_ she was saying them—echoed in Tiffany’s head, and she had no doubt they were echoing in Akko and Sucy’s heads too.

“I didn’t agree to come in the first place. You did, Akko, and you two dragged me along like you _always_ do. You didn’t even ask me.” Her hands were twitching, as if being used by someone who didn’t know how to use them. “You didn’t even _think_ about it.”

She looked up, although her eyes were still obscured by her glasses. “It’s always about what _you_ want! You’re always dragging me places I don’t want to be!”

Sucy’s eyes were narrow. “Lotte. Quit it. This isn’t like you.”

“Hah!” Lotte’s bark of a laugh couldn’t possibly have held less humor. “Is that how it is? _You_ get to be a jerk for a year and no one gets to say anything about it, but the moment the _nice_ girl decides to speak up—”

Sucy was shrinking back. Akko stepped forward now. “Lay off her, Lotte. I know you’re upset, but Sucy’s been dealing with a lot, and—”

“And it gives her an excuse to treat everyone around her like garbage.” Lotte was grinning now, and her teeth seemed to catch the light as well as her glasses, giving her an eerie glow. Like a jack-o-lantern with a white flame inside. “Why are you _defending_ her, Akko? Do you know how many poisons she’s shoved down your throat?”

“Stop it!” Akko flung her hands out, palms open. “What’s gotten _into_ you, Lotte? What’s going on?”

“What’s gotten _into_ me?” This time, when Lotte laughed, it was high pitched, frightening, and it sounded like she was having the time of her life. “Maybe I’m tired of you too, Akko. Did you ever notice, while you were acting like the _leader_ of our troupe, how much time I spent trying to keep you out of trouble? God, I feel like I need to buy you a _leash!_ ”

She’d figured out what to do with her hands, at last. They were balled into tight fists. “You’re _horrible!_ You’re both _horrible_ and I don’t know why I hang around you!”

Akko stood in slack-jawed astonishment. Sucy didn’t look any more in control.

“H-hey,” Tiff said. She stepped forward slowly. “This isn’t right. You three are supposed to be friends. You’re supposed to always win and always be friends and… not change. Come on, say… say _jinkies_ or something.”

Lotte fixed her gaze on Tiff, and Tiff gasped. “ _Jinkies?_ You really think you know people, Tiffany Vandergard? You don’t know the first thing about _anyone_ , and _that’s_ why Alice ditched you.”

Tiff staggered as if she’d been bludgeoned in the stomach. But Lotte’s eyes—she’d angled them differently, to look at Tiff, and they were _glowing_. It wasn’t just some trick of the light: they were glowing electric blue.

Thank goodness she wasn’t the only one who noticed. “Lotte,” Akko said. “Your eyes. You—what have you done with Lotte?”

“And you finally get it.” Lotte—no, not Lotte—the ghost laughed, raising Lotte’s arms to the side like a preacher’s. “You would have figured it out five minutes ago if you’d listened to her. But you know what I’ve learned from being stuck in this library for a thousand years?”

She let her hands rise, fingers clutching at the air, and red energy flowed from them. All around the group, the bookshelves—not just the books, the _shelves_ —creaked, groaned, and rose into the air. So did Lotte’s body, arms still wide as if crucified, glowing arcanely. The echoes of her voice filled the cavernous library. “No one _ever_ listens.”

“Is that what you think?” Akko’s mouth wasn’t in its devastated, half-open gawp anymore: she wore a fierce scowl. “Well, listen to this! Tlahuel—”

The ghost pointed Lotte’s fingers at her. Books flew off the shelves at Akko like bullets from a gatling gun. She yelped midword, ducking flat to the ground to avoid them. Sucy dodged to the side, but Tiffany wasn’t so lucky; a few books caught her in the stomach and she went down _hard_.

“Tlahuel—”

Lotte’s body had floated above the shelves. She grinned malevolently, then clapped her hands together. The bookshelves on either side mimicked the motion, slamming inward with a horrid crash of wood.

The next thing Tiff saw, she was on the Shooting Star, looking down at the wreckage of the shelves—it must have slipped under her and carried her up. Looking down, she saw that Sucy had done some sort of backflip and gotten on top of the shelves. But… “ _Akko!_ ” Tiff gasped, with the little air her lungs had to offer.

“Okay, you know what?”

The squeaky voice came from within the shattered shelves. A second later, a furious-looking mouse—sharing Akko’s hairstyle—scampered out from one of the shattered cubbies and crawled up to the top. “You’re making this way harder than it has to be!” she yelled, pointing up at Lotte’s floating body. “ _Tlahuelpuchi!_ ”

A moment of stillness.

Lotte’s mouth opened, and what came forth were cackles.

“Okay, that’s not it!” There was a poof of smoke, and Akko was standing atop the ruined shelves again, Sucy by her side. “Er, what was the last one again?”

“Lu….” Tiff wheezed.

“Akko,” Sucy said, quietly.

“What?”

Sucy pointed to the side, behind Lotte’s floating body. Akko looked and said, “Oh.”

The air was filled with books. They formed a sort of floating wall behind Lotte’s body, spines pointed at the three of them, filling an entire cross-section of the library. Lotte’s face was set in a snarl, and the ghost heaved breaths and growls. “Let’s see you leave me behind _NOW!_ ”

She flung her hands forward. With a wave of red energy, the books flew at them.

“Stop!” Tiff said, as loudly as she could.

The books were nearly here. Akko readied her wand, Sucy her staff.

“Stop!” Tiff yelled, and heaved a breath. “ _Lucretia!_ ”

The books—

—froze.

Lotte’s jaw was slack. All around her, the books fell like rain, providing the same sort of ambient noise. Her arms slowly fell to her sides. “Lucretia?” she whispered.

Akko’s eyes were wide. “You got her!” she yelled, pumping her fist.

“Lucretia?” she said, somewhat louder. A _lot_ angrier. The white noise of books hitting the floor faded, replaced with a different rumbling. One by one, around her, the shelves were levitating off the ground.

“You—you didn’t get her?” Akko’s eyes were wide as she stared up at Tiff. “There’s no one _left!_ That’s _all_ of them! Who _is_ she?”

“ _LUCRETIA!?_ ”

The bookshelves flew at them, and this time, they weren’t freezing for anything.

Akko drew her wand and plunged it toward the ground like the sword into the stone, with a cry of, “ _Aegis maxima!_ ” A crystalline barrier of energy sprung up before her and Sucy, and just in time. Bookshelf after bookshelf shattered against it—but Tiffany could see it was wavering.

At least she was _pretty_ sure it was wavering. She had her own problems; a sizeable contingent of the shelves were flying at _her_ level. She weaved _hard_ to the left, dodging a row of them, then zoomed low under another set until she was right in front of Lotte. “Snap _out_ of it!” she yelled—then she hauled back and punched Lotte in the face.

The ghost creaked Lotte’s head back toward her, and her eyes blazed crimson anew. “ _You_ ,” she hissed. One of her upraised hands clenched into a fist.

Tiff heard a sort of _swishing_ from her left, and looked that way with dread in her stomach. One of the shattered shelves was rising, piece, by broken piece—nails, splinters of wood, screws, and more. Then they flew at her like a storm of flechettes.

Tiff gasped and dove low, but they were following her. She put all her energy into evading them: soaring toward the ceiling, corkscrewing, diving straight down—

And got slammed in the side by a shelf.

She saw nothing but stars, but felt her body tumbling down into a _harsh_ landing, flat on her stomach. She could hardly breathe—and then a load of lumber _fell_ upon her. She’d have cried out in pain if she had the air, and the taste of blood was so strong in her mouth she felt ready to choke on it.

As her vision returned, Tiff saw Akko and Sucy between the white spots on her eyes. Akko’s shield was failing, and Sucy tensed, ready for action—but it was no help. A length of wood shattered the shield and struck Akko in the face, knocking her down. Sucy tried to parry with her staff, but another shelf came at her, knocking it from her hands. It sailed through the air, transforming back into the cane it had been.

As Sucy glanced after it, another piece of wood struck her in the stomach, sending her sprawling atop Akko.

Tiff felt the Shooting Star squirming beneath her, but then the wood on her back seemed to get _heavier_ , and she let out a rattle of pain. It hurt _so bad_.

“Stay down.” Lotte’s voice rang out coldly through the library, so unlike how kind she’d been before. She floated down toward Tiffany, her hand in an open, clenched position before her, as if she were drowning something beneath an invisible lake. “Now, my new friend,” she said, touching down and kneeling at Tiff’s side, smiling obscenely, “what should we—”

A creaking sound filled the room. The sound of a door opening.

Lotte whirled around. Tiff craned her neck as best as she could. It wasn’t enough: she saw a beam of light lancing out across the floor, but not the door it was coming from. Then she heard the slow footsteps, interspersed with the steady _tap_ of a cane, or a staff. By and by, a shadow hobbled into the light.

“ _Who?_ ” Lotte yelled.

“Me,” said the voice.

Old. Almost senile. Tiffany was already gasping, but now she made room for one more: was that _Professor Lukić?_

The tapping came closer, at exactly the rate Tiff would expect for an arthritic old woman. “I wondered if it really was you,” she said, “all these years. I don’t ask you to forgive me for my cowardice in never coming to check. But doing what you did to these poor girls, my dear? That is _not_ acceptable.”

Lotte’s body stepped forward, less like a person and more like a puppet being dragged suddenly. “Who are _you_ to tell me what’s acceptable? Who are _you_ at _all?_ ”

Lukić laughed in her eerie old cackle. “Who better to discipline a tantruming child?” She was just barely in Tiff’s view now, and spread one arm wide, the other still upon her staff. “You mean to say you don’t recognize me, daughter dear?”

_Daughter?_ Tiff stared. This ghost, whoever she was, had been in the library for over a _thousand_ years.

Lotte’s hand thrust forward. “You’re not her,” she seethed. “You’re not Lucretia!” The hand glowed red, and a new hail of books flung themselves at Lukić.

Lukić tapped her staff on the floor. The books fell harmlessly to the ground.

The ghost growled, threw more and more at Lukić as she approached, but with each tap, the ghost’s ammunition left its control. More than that, with each tap, the destroyed books and shelves around the professor reassembled themselves, slotted themselves back into their compartments.

All the while, Tiff’s jaw was slack.

_You think I’m just some doddering old witch, don’t you?... You’re more right than you know._

_Tap_ , went her staff. She was closing in.

_Well, it’s not Beatrix or Woodward. I’ve met them, they’re nice… usually._

_Tap_ , went her staff.

“Stop it!” the ghost shrieked, as Lukić stepped past Akko and Sucy’s unconscious bodies, toward Lotte’s. She raised her arm, and Lotte’s body flinched away—

Lucretia held her in a one armed hug, and Lotte’s body went rigid.

No one spoke for several seconds, and all Tiff could hear was her own labored breathing. Then, finally, Lotte’s mouth moved. “Don’t act like you care _now_. Not sixteen hundred years later.” The voice was hard, but it was the kind of hard that was holding back tears.

“I always cared.”

“You never _acted_ like it!” The ghost shoved her way out of Lucretia’s grasp. “Do you remember what your idea of _caring_ was? You shoved me in this library to study, day in and day out, while you and your other eight ‘Olde Witches’ went off and _did_ things!”

“I know,” Lucretia said.

“I _died_ in here.” No more holding the tears back now. Lotte’s hand reached behind her back and retrieved the book. It glowed with her energy. “I remember now. I was reading this book. I was trying to do a spell that might just _impress_ you. That might make you _acknowledge_ I exist!”

She flung her arms wide, the book returning to her back. “And now I can barely remember _I_ exist!” Her teeth were gritted, and Tiff saw the tears welling in her eyes. “I’ve seen the books in here about you. They don’t even _mention_ me. They don’t mention you even _had_ a daughter!”

“I know.”

“Don’t _say_ that!” Lotte stamped her foot. “If you _know_ , then _why?_ ”

“Because I’m not in those books either.”

Lucretia slowly unclenched her right hand, and her staff fell. “Because the Lucretia in those books is a good woman, and I’m not in them.” She sighed. “Because the thought that the ghost in this library might be _you_ … it hurt too much to think about. And I was selfish enough that that was reason enough, for over a thousand years, and I can’t ever make that up to you.”

She stepped forward and embraced Lotte—the ghost—in a hug, and this time the ghost let her. “I’m sorry I made you hate me,” Lucretia whispered, “but I can let you go now. My little girl. My beautiful _Marya_.”

The final word—the final name—had been spoken quietly, yet it echoed like a gunshot. Lotte gasped. Then her face broke out into a tearful smile, and the ghost wrapped her arms around her mother. “I never hated you, _Mama_ ,” she whispered, as motes of blue floated from her like snowfall in reverse. “It was always… _her_.”

She shook. Then the final motes of blue rose from her and ascended, through the ceiling, to who knew where. Lotte’s body went limp, and she sagged in Lucretia’s grasp. The book slid from her hand and landed on the floor, harmlessly.

Lucretia let out a long breath. Then she stooped, still supporting Lotte on her shoulder. She picked up the book and her staff, and tapped the latter against the ground once more. A wave of green energy spread throughout the library. Tiff felt the shelves lifting off her body, and looked up to see them reassembling themselves. With all the extra room her lungs had all of a sudden, she heaved huge breaths.

Akko groaned from where she lay upon the ground. Lucretia turned around, not toward her, but to Tiff. She fixed one bulging eye on Tiff and raised her index finger to her mouth.

The gesture was unmistakable. Tiff gulped, and shut up.

* * *

Akko groaned. Her back, and her everything else, felt like she’d just gotten a building dropped on her, and judging by what she remembered from before being knocked cold, that wasn’t far off.

_Wand. Check._ It wasn’t on her belt but it _was_ on the ground in front of her, so she scrabbled her hand forward until it was in her fingers.

_Sucy. Check._ Sucy was groaning her way back to life on Akko’s left. “Not worth it,” she mumbled, fumbling in her robes for some sort of potion. "So not worth the detention slips."

_Lotte_. Akko shook herself. _Lotte!_ She shoved herself to her unsteady feet, the adrenaline spike strong enough that she didn’t wince from the pain. “Lotte!” she yelled.

She was there, still mostly unconscious but apparently okay, her body being held by…. “Professor Lukić?” Akko frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Lukić cackled, supporting Lotte with one arm, the other arm holding the staff that supported her. It seemed a bit precarious. “Just a little janitorial work. I came to help, but you’d had all the fun!”

“So the ghost is gone? And when you say ‘a little’….” Akko glanced around. The last she’d seen, the library had been absolutely _destroyed_. Like, ‘we’re giving you a detention voucher and also an expulsion notice for ruining our library’, kind of destroyed. Now, the moonlight shone on shelves in neat rows, their books neatly stacked, as if she’d just arrived. “How in—how did you—I was out for a _minute!_ No way did you fix it all that fast!”

“Were you?” Lukić cackled. “In fact you were unconscious out for some time, my dear problem child. It’s good to see you up.”

“Wait, how long _was_ I—”

Lotte made a little murmur. Akko switched gears mid-word. “ _Lotte!_ ” she yelled, tripping over her tongue as she rushed forward. As Lotte slumped forward, Akko grabbed her out of Lukić’s arms. “Lotte, speak to me!”

Lotte groaned with obvious discomfort. There was a shiner of a bruise on Lotte’s cheek, and Akko wasn’t sure where it had come from. Behind her, she noticed Sucy rushing up, holding a vial. She reached forward gently, and let a drop fall on the bruise. Lotte let out a grunt of pain, flinching as it made contact.

The bruise let out some smoke, sizzled, and then lost some of its definition, as though it had spent two weeks healing. Sucy pulled back, staring with the quiet intensity that told Akko she was worried.

Finally, Lotte’s eyes blinked open. They weren’t glowing, and they weren’t red. They were just Lotte’s regular old eyes. “Wow,” she whispered, “that smells really bad, Sucy.”

By the time Akko realized she’d gone and hugged Lotte, her arms were already around Lotte’s body and her face was in her friend’s shoulder. A weight on her left side told her that Sucy had joined in too. “Please don’t get possessed again,” she said, fervently.

“Okay,” Lotte said. A few seconds passed. “Wait,” Lotte said, “I was possessed? You’re saying I was—”

“You didn’t know you were possessed?” Akko broke from the hug, holding Lotte’s shoulders at arms’ length.

“I just….” Lotte gritted her teeth and rubbed her temple, as if trying to knead the headache away. “The ghost shrieked, everything collapsed on us, we were under Sucy’s mushroom and I was saying something felt wrong, and…. It’s not very clear after that.” She stared at Akko, eyes wide. “You’re saying that ghost _possessed_ me?”

“And she would have gotten away with it too,” Lukić said, laughing with herself, “if it weren’t for you meddling kids.”

“So the ghost is gone? It really _was_ Lucretia?” Akko found herself squinting as she looked up at Lukić. Somehow the story didn’t seem right.

“Yes!”

The four of them—Akko, Sucy, Lotte, and Lukić—looked over to where Tiff was standing. In the tumult, her presence had completely slipped Akko’s mind. “Yes,” she repeated, quite loudly, like a kid in a play trying to make sure her parents heard her lines. “You said her name and she disappeared, and that’s exactly what happened!”

“It kind of didn’t go away,” Sucy said, her lidded stare fixed on Tiff. “It kind of threw a library at us.”

“Those were just its death throes!” Tiff frowned. “Undeath throes? Redeath throes? Er, those were just its throes.”

“Hm.” Akko frowned, then shrugged. “Well, you were there!” However, her frown deepened. “You know, I was gonna forgive that ghost for being so mean and everything, and then it went and possessed you and tried to kill us! I thought the Nine Olde Witches were, you know, _nice_ , but Lucretia’s just the _worst!_ ”

Tiff squinted her eyes, and the rest of her face too. It looked _really_ uncomfortable. “I mean….”

“ _Yes_ ,” Professor Lukić said, letting out a short bark of a laugh. “Lucretia was absolutely deplorable. But now you’re done, and I have _these_ for you!” She reached into her robes and pulled out three impressive-looking pieces of paper.

“The detention vouchers!” Akko said, snatching hers.

“Not worth it,” Sucy muttered, grabbing hers.

Lotte took her voucher without comment.

“And now, if you’ll excuse me,” Lukić said, smiling in that wicked way of hers, “I need to talk to this small child for a… debriefing session.” She tilted her head toward Tiffany, who stared at her expectantly, almost obsequiously. “Your work is finished. Go, go!”

“Don’t need to say it twice,” Sucy said. She turned around and made for the door. Akko was quick to come up to her side, while Lotte followed behind, clutching her hands and looking vaguely uncomfortable. Like always.

_They always won, and they were always friends, and nothing ever changed._

As they made it through the door, Sucy held up her detention voucher. “Hey,” she said, “night’s still young and I’m still mad. Let’s go blow this on something.” She shook it a few times.

But Akko held up her hand. “Wait.” She turned to Lotte. “Lotte, you said it ‘wasn’t very clear’ after the Lucretia possessed you. You _didn’t_ say that you couldn’t remember anything.”

All of a sudden, Lotte seemed like she wanted to stare anywhere but at Akko’s face. She looked less _vaguely_ uncomfortable now, more _specifically_ uncomfortable. “Um,” she said, and sucked in breath. “A… little.”

“Do you remember calling us terrible friends?”

Lotte looked down at her shoes.

“Is that how you feel?”

“No! It’s not….” Another deep breath. “Sometimes,” she said, looking up at last, her lips trembling, “you two can be a bit… much. And I’m not that. I’m not… much. I don’t know how to say no sometimes, when you’re like that.” She looked down at the floor again, as if awaiting judgment.

Akko looked at her. Then, she looked at Sucy. Then Sucy blinked, and then Sucy nodded. “Lotte,” she said, “Akko and I are going to go do something stupid and blow our vouchers. Want in?”

“I….” Lotte looked at them, and Akko hoped she was making her own eyes encouraging enough. “No,” she said, finally. Then she said it again, stronger: “No! I want to go back to bed and read a book.”

Akko leaned in and hugged her again. Why not? She was a hugger. “Of course,” she said. “You’re _always_ much to me.” She heard Lotte chuckle by her head.

Then she let go and grabbed Sucy by the hand. “Come on,” she said, “let’s go tick off Professor Finnelan!”

Off they ran. Akko glanced back to see Lotte waving at them, shaking her head a bit.

* * *

“You said they were out for _some time_ ,” Tiff said, following Professor Lucretia up to her office.

“And they _were_ out for some time,” Lucretia replied, chuckling under her breath. “The time in question was sixty seconds or so, in fact.”

It was incredible. In the dead of night, with Luna Nova’s corridors empty and no one here to witness her, Lucretia was a different person. Though she still walked with a staff for balance, she was far faster and more surefooted than she acted in public. Though she still laughed with unnerving regularity, she didn’t spend fifty words at a time to say nothing at all. Did no one else know about this?

In far less time than Tiffany would have expected, they had arrived at the office of Professor Lukić—at least, that was the engraving upon the door. With a tap of Lucretia’s staff, the door creaked open to reveal a room filled with bubbling potions, taxidermied animals suspended in bottles, and a trio of bats hanging from perches. They squeaked happily as Lucretia entered, and she reached within her robe to pull out fruit for them to munch on.

Lucretia took a book—the book her daughter had possessed—from her cloak and placed it on the desk. Then she sat in the room’s chair. Its only chair: Tiff stayed standing, holding the Star in one hand. “Well,” Lucretia said, tapping her staff on the floor again: the door closed shut. “I can see the steam leaving your ears, reddened child, from all the questions burning inside you. Ask.”

The first one left Tiff’s mouth before she could think to stop herself. “How are you immortal?”

“Well.” Lucretia tapped her chin. “ _Am_ I immortal? I can’t say for sure. Might just be very long lived. Never felt like testing it empirically, to be honest.” She laughed, then coughed, and grabbed a bottle of clear liquid from her desk— _hopefully_ water—and drank it for a few seconds. “Better,” she said. “Now as for why I’m still around… good food, clean living, and I _think_ a potion accident when I was ninety that I’ve never been able to replicate.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Not a living soul.” Lucretia smirked. “Not sure how long that’ll last with all this fancy photography these days. But as far as anyone knows, old Lukić has been doddering around forever, and that’s as far as anyone looks into it. Keep it that way, won’t you?”

“What were they like?”

When Lucretia motioned with her hand for clarification, Tiff kept blurting. “The other Olde Witches! What were they like?”

“I don’t know.”

“But—” _How can you not know?_ Tiff wanted to say, but Lucretia held up her finger and stared off into the middle distance.

After a few seconds, she answered. “This brain of mine isn’t really made for my sort of lifespan. I don’t remember everything I wish I did. That act of mine, that senile old witch I play at, it’s not as much of a lie as I wish. But… if they’re like me… then they were terrible.”

“You—” Tiff gesticulated with her free hand. “You just said you don’t know! How can you call them terrible?”

Lucretia looked at her. Looked _through_ her, with rheumatic old eyes that seemed more incisive than finely tuned scientific instruments. “You seem like you’re trying to make yourself a great witch,” she said.

Tiff didn’t need to reply. “In that case,” Lucretia said, “remember something, won’t you, child? There’s many difficult things in this world for a young witch. None of them is as difficult as becoming a great witch, a _truly_ great witch, and remaining a good one. Think about it, won’t you?”

Tiff frowned. Before she could try to process the words, Lucretia clapped her hands. “Well, enough of that. It’s time for _my_ question now. Just one, don’t worry.” She leaned forward in her chair. “The point of any detention is to make sure the pupil learns something. So, what did you learn from tonight’s detention?”

“Um….” Tiff felt as though she’d been caught with her weight on her heels. “I learned that… sometimes… you can be mean to your friends… without realizing you’re doing it? And that… they might be angry about it without telling you?” She looked down at the floor. “Is that why Alice is—”

Lucretia let out a long, shrill laugh. “Not even _close!_ Try again!”

Tiff glanced up, eyes narrow. “How about, Scooby Doo is a dumb show and you shouldn’t watch it?”

“Scooby Doo is an _excellent_ show, you young fool,” Lucretia said, cackling. “Last try?”

“Don’t abandon your children in a library for a thousand years?” Tiff clapped her hands over her mouth as soon as she'd said it, which was about five seconds later than she should have.

Lucretia glared up at her. “Well, you’ve got a mouth on you, don’t you?” She clicked her tongue. Before Tiff could apologize, though, Lucretia was speaking again. “But you're not wrong. Thankfully you’ve got a brain on you as well. You’re not _unintelligent_. I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon.”

She tapped her staff on the floor, and Tiff heard the door creaking behind her. “I’m done with you. Your detention is complete. Go and get some rest.” She winked. “Try not to obsess over some batty old crone’s riddle, will you?”

* * *

“Ugh,” Tiff groaned the next day, having barely slept all night due to obsessing over some batty old crone’s riddle. Maybe four hours of sleep, at the _most_. Thank goodness it was Sunday, at least, but… what was that irregular beeping?

With laborious effort, she rolled over on her side and craned her neck down to look at the source. “Char,” she muttered, “what….”

Char glanced her way. “Oh, you’re up. Bright and early.” Then she returned to looking at her phone—a phone which, Tiff saw as she squinted, told her the time was just after noon.

“What are you doing?” Tiff said.

“Alarms.” Char held her phone up for Tiff to take. “See?”

Tiff yawned wide, and when she was done she tried to focus on the screen she was holding. The first alarm was an hour and a half before their first class. Subsequent alarms followed at ten minute intervals. “Seriously?”

“I’ll have headphones in, you won’t hear a thing.” The creaking and shifting of weight from below told Tiff that Char was getting off her mattress and standing up, and Tiff looked up to see Char holding her hand out. Tiff returned her phone. “It’s just… I kinda screwed you over. Got you in detention because I couldn’t get out of bed. And, to do that to my mate, that seems pretty shitty. So this is me, trying to make it up to you.”

Tiff winced at the curse, but smiled anyway. “You’re really putting in the effort, aren’t you.” She swung her legs out toward the ladder. “You know, Char, you can be a pretty good friend.”

“Stop, you’ll make me blush.” Char pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “Also, Mani’s been waiting for you to get up and she brought breakfast. Better call her a good friend too.”

Tiff looked past Char to see that yes, Mani was resting on her bed next to a plate of scones and packets of butter. “I wasn’t sure how many you wanted,” she said, sitting more upright, “so I got a bunch for—ow!” she yelped, clonking her head on the Shooting Star as she rose. It hovered over her bed, pointed toward the window like the previous night, but bathed in sunlight this time.

“Thanks!” Tiff smiled. “And yes, you are also a good friend, Mani.”

Mani smiled back, a little shyly. “Let me get you one,” she said, and picked up her wand from her bedside table.

Tiff had enough presence of mind to flatten herself against her mattress, just before Mani’s levitation spell blasted the scone at her. It smashed against the wall behind her and burst in a shower of crumbs. “Sorry!” Mani yelped. “I _swear_ I could do that yesterday!”

Tiff smirked. Then she chuckled, even snorted. She couldn’t help it. How could she have possibly felt alone in the library, the previous night?

“Here,” Char said, grabbing a second scone and tossing it up, an easy grab for Tiff. “For what it’s worth, she _did_ manage it yesterday. No lies.”

“Yeah!” Mani growled, then rolled over and fumbled on her bedside table for her anti-magic device. “I bet getting bruised on the head from your broom probably messed me up,” she said, firing a few spells into the device.

“Totally.” Char stuck both hands behind her head and leaned against the wall. “Hey, you still don’t know what’s up with that thing, right? And why did Professor Lukić want you to bring it along on the detention, anyway?”

Tiffany gulped down a bite of her scone, then cleared her throat. “I’m afraid I’m no closer to understanding the Shooting Star, and I don’t know why Professor Lu—”

She choked on her scone.

“Mate?” Char leaned toward her. “Did some scone go down the wrong way?”

“Oh my goodness,” Tiff said, sputtering as she coughed up the bit of pastry. “Oh my actual, genuine goodness.” In her peripheral vision, she saw the rest of the scone slipping from her fingers, and Char and Mani exchanging confused glances, but she barely had the brainpower necessary to notice. She’d spent all night obsessing over the question, and as soon as she’d taken her mind off it for a _minute_ , the answer was—

“That’s it,” she murmured. “It’s really that stupidly simple. That’s _all_ she was trying to show me.”

“Mate?” Char said, just as Tiff hurled herself over the edge of the bed and down the ladder, almost falling flat on her face in the process. “Whoa! What’s happening, can we get some explanation here?”

“No time!” Tiff grabbed a simple robe and yanked it over her head, not taking the time to smooth out any wrinkles. She snatched the Star from the air, yanked the door open, and hopped on her broom. “I’ll explain everything later, but this is—this is _huge_ and I can’t believe no one’s ever figured this out! Later!”

“Tiff!” Mani called out, but Tiff was gone—zooming down the hall, all thoughts of no-flying-in-the-corridor rules vanished from her mind. That mind was focused on a very specific destination: the second year dorms.

She metaphorically screeched to a literal halt half a minute later, stopping in front of the open door she needed. “Lotte Jansson!” she yelled. “I need to talk to you right now!”

Lotte looked down from her top bunk, peering over the top of her book. Akko and Sucy also looked up, and Akko waved a floppy hello. The two of them looked as happy as clams—if the clams in question were covered in welts, dripping with bright orange slime, and apparently lacking any bones other than their skulls. Tiff lost her train of thought for a moment, there. “Er?”

“Detention vouchers,” Lotte said, as though that explained anything. “The effects should wear off by tomorrow, apparently. I can't believe this is what you two blew them on.”

“Worth it,” Sucy mumbled.

Lotte shook her head with a little smile, then refocused on Tiff. “Sorry, you said you wanted to talk to _me?_ ”

“Right! _Needed_ to!” Tiff got off the Star, planted her feet, and held it out. “Please come down!”

Lotte did. “What’s the problem?”

“Not a problem! Just…” Tiff let herself inside the room and shut the door. “You can talk to ghosts, right?”

Lotte nodded.

“Ghosts who can fly around and have a mind of their own?”

“Yes, that’s what ghosts are….”

“Ghosts who can _possess_ objects,” Tiff said, “and make _them_ fly around, and make  _them_  look like they have minds of their own.” She shoved the Shooting Star forward.

All four of them stared at it. Lotte was the first to speak, a full ten seconds later. “Oh. I… I never thought of that before.” She grimaced, sort of scrunching her body inward as she considered it. “I don’t know if it would….”

“Please! At least try it!” Tiff stepped forward, shoving the broom further forward.

“Okay.” Lotte took a deep breath, closed her eyes, steadied herself. She opened them, and sang again. It was the song from last night, but it wasn’t resonant like it had been in the library. Just one girl, singing one little questioning song.

After about twenty seconds, Tiff began to feel a little silly. “Is it working?” Akko said, doing her best to crane her neck forward. “I kind of expected something to—”

* * *

She stood upon the windswept tor. This was the time and place, correct? The meeting place she’d heard about.

A gusting wind picked up, much stronger than before. She fought to keep her footing, arms flailing about, and almost dropped her broom—that wouldn’t do; she was trying to impress! To make a statement!

“There she is!” cried a voice.

The witch looked up to see two new witches gliding down on _ordinary_ brooms—nothing like hers. “I’m _very_ sorry we’re late!” yelled one, whose hair was braided with flowers. “The leyline was unstable on the way here, and—you are _very_ red,” she said, interrupting herself as she alighted upon the ground.

_And you are very green_ , the witch decided not to say. Neither accusation was exactly incorrect: the witch’s clothes, wand, hair, even _broom_ were all red, whereas the flower-braided young woman was robed entirely in emerald. Together, they looked like Christmas.

“And that, Woodward, is why we leave _early_ ,” the other newcomer said in a lecturing voice. Her hair was unbraided, flowing, and composed of blonde and pale green locks. “Now, I believe we know why we’re all here,” she said, turning her attention on the witch. “Make your case.”

The witch fought down the urge to gulp, and straightened up her back instead. “I’m from across the sea. I’ve spent my childhood learning all I could of enchantments, curses, all the witchcraft that I could. It’s not enough. I’ve exhausted my resources in my homeland. But there are whispers.”

She stepped forward. “A cabal of witches on a faraway island, forming a sisterhood of learning. Open only to the select few. I _assure_ you, there is no witch more select than me.”

They just kept… staring at her. No positive reaction, not even a negative one. The witch felt herself wilt. “Please,” she said. “Magic exists to _help_ people, but I can't do that with what I know now. I need your guidance.”

At long last, Woodward smiled. The witch suppressed a sigh of relief. “So,” Woodward said. “How do you plan to convince us that you’re a good fit for the New Moon Society, new friend?”

Beside her, the blonde-and-green witch rolled her eyes. “Beatrix,” Woodward said out of the side of her mouth, “we’ve been over this a hundred times. We do not _need_ to use the Latin name; it just sounds pretentious.”

“Latin is the language of learning. And it sounds better, besides.”

“Why do you think _Luna Nova_ sounds better?”

The witch held up a finger before Beatrix and Woodward could continue their argument. “Firstly,” she said. “I would _much_ rather be inducted into a society with the name _Luna Nova_. And secondly,” she continued, before Woodward could get out a word of retort, “ _this_ is my case.”

She held out her broom—if she could call it that, but the truth was that naming it so seemed an insult. “This is my finest work of magic,” she said. “My _Shooting Star_. Name a destination, and I can fly to it faster than any other witch on any other broom—though she be given a head start of ten leagues.”

Beatrix looked at her coolly. “Confidence,” she said. “Good.”

“Don’t worry,” Woodward said, holding a hand to her mouth as if in a play. “She’s quite affectionate once you get to know her.”

Beatrix snorted. “In _any_ case. This tor,” she said, jabbing her broom at the hill beneath them, “is at one end of a leyline. At the other end is the site of our society. If you are the witch you claim, it will be no trouble to arrive at that destination— _before_ we do. And since I’m in a sporting mood today….”

She smirked and threw a leg over her broom. “I _won’t_ be accepting any sort of head start.”

The witch snorted too, mounting her Shooting Star. “That’s your loss.” She felt the energy building beneath her, as if standing upon a volcano. She and the broom were united in wanting to _go_ , to _win_ , to _learn_.

“All right, I’ll count us off!” said Woodward, mounting her broom as well. “Oh, and before I forget, I don’t believe we asked your name?”

The witch smiled. “My name is Scarlette. And it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

* * *

“—happen already,” Akko said, and then her jaw dropped.

Tiff heaved a breath like a deep diver breaching the water. That _memory_ … it had been so _real_ , as if plucked straight out of someone else’s head. And then she saw the face. The head it had been plucked from.

A face, outlined in red and floating above the middle of the Shooting Star. Female, but that was about as far as Tiff could figure out—it was too indistinct to see if she was young or old. Her mouth was moving, and Tiff heard the voice she’d heard in her dreams the previous night.

“Help me. Please... Tiffany. You… save everyone. Find… find me. Find the rest of me. Please.”

Tiff’s stare was fixed upon her. She hardly breathed.

“Help me,” the face said. “Find me.”

“That’s… that’s the Fourth Olde Witch,” Tiff said. “That’s Scarlette!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I forget: I want to thank hecallsmehischild, without whose constant encouragement and pre reading help this story wouldn't be nearly what it is today.


	13. Are You With Me? (1)

Elizabeth was certain that she was about to die.

Unfortunately, the thing was—and somehow this part was more frustrating than being about to die—the thing was that Elizabeth didn’t know how she knew. It was like… like how gravity went down, and fire was hot, and her older sister was annoying. She just _knew_ it as a fact of the universe, even if she didn’t have the words to say why.

This made convincing Mum and Janine a real pain in the bum.

“Well,” Mum said, holding her hand to Lizzie’s head as she sprawled in bed, “you don’t feel feverish. Or clammy, or even sweaty.”

“Because she’s not sick,” Janine groaned. “She’s faking it. To get out of school. _Again_.”

“Ugh,” Lizzie managed. Talking was difficult enough; she definitely couldn’t muster the will to get out of bed, no matter what they said. “Mummmm, I’m not faking it. I feel like I’m about to die.”

“When I was your age,” Janine said, leaning over her bed, “I once got sick really bad. I thought I was going to die too. It lasted about three days. Even if you feel like that, and I’m not saying I think you do, it doesn’t mean—”

“ _Janiiiiiiine_.” Lizzie put all her strength into that ‘Janine’, and it worked: something clinked somewhere, and Janine shut up.

For about five seconds. “In any case,” she said, as Lizzie closed her eyes in defeat. “I hope you understand what all these absences are doing to your education. Do you think I would have gotten my career if I’d skipped classes every day I could? Are you with me so far?”

Mum laughed, but not in an agreeing way. “Janine, dear, you don’t have to act like her mother. I’m already right here.”

“I’m just saying—”

“And we’re listening.” Mum laughed again, which incidentally proved that Janine couldn’t ever successfully act like her. Janine wasn’t the laughing type. “Don’t you have your big important career to get to?”

Janine sighed like _she_ was the one dying. “Right you are, Mother.”

The sound of fabric on hair told Lizzie that Janine was putting on that stupid hat, and it was quickly followed by footsteps. Janine, mercifully, was leaving the room. But then another set of footsteps: Mum was leaving too. “Mummm?” she managed.

“I’ll be right back,” Mum said, patting her head before she walked away—at least, her voice was getting further away: Lizzie wasn’t opening her eyes. “And you don’t have to go to school today, don’t worry.” Lizzie could _hear_ Janine rolling her eyes at that. Apparently the sound of rolling eyes sounded like a scoff.

She groaned as the two of them descended the stairs, and managed to open her eyes again. She wasn’t sure why she bothered: all she got to look at was her stupid bedroom that she had to share with Janine, and with all of Janine’s stupid awards. Like the karate trophy, on the dresser on the opposite wall. God, what a tacky plastic piece of junk it was.

A blank room, a row of ugly trophies, and this feeling of frustrating, inexplicable dread. That was all she had. Lizzie growled, clenched her fist, and—the trophy rattled.

She blinked, and then she heard voices: Mum and Janine downstairs. “Have a lovely day out there,” Mum said.

And then Janine said, in the same clipped tone as before: “If she’s really not faking it. Get her to a doctor.”

“Okay,” Mum said, laughing a little. “To the best doctor in Blytonbury, by noon.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why wait until noon?”

“Fine. Ten.”

“Better.” Another pause. “Let me know how she’s doing.”

“Will do. Cheerio, Janine! Do some good out there!”

The door opened, then shut. Lizzie groaned. Do some good out there? If Janine wanted to do any good, she could start by doing it _in here_. Starting with, maybe, clearing off some of her stupid trophies, so Lizzie had room to put anything—

The karate trophy vibrated.

This time, there was no distraction to keep Lizzie’s eye from watching the trophy shake, as if trying not to scratch an itch. She moved her fist slightly, rotating it left and right, and watched as the trophy did the same, squeaking against the dresser as it turned.

Then she bent her arm, pulling her fist back. The trophy dragged itself across the dresser, as if on the end of a rope, until it fell. She heard it shatter, heard it explode against the floor.

Ah. Lizzie managed to hold up her hand, looking at her fingers as if she’d never seen them before. Now she understood exactly why she was about to die.

“Lizzie, dear? Is that you?”

Mum came into the room. She paused, looked down at the floor, and frowned; then she picked up one of the pieces of the broken trophy. “Did you do this?”

Lizzie didn’t respond, because she was heaving big breaths.

“And here I thought you couldn’t get out of bed.” Her mother tutted, and it almost sounded like a laugh. “Guess you’re going to school after all….”

“Mmmum?”

“Don’t _Mmmum_ me. I took your side against your sister, and—”

Lizzie clenched her fist so tight she could feel the nails cutting the heel of her palm. The rest of the trophies shook, making a noise like an approaching train, and Mum shut up. And turned around, slowly.

One by one, the trophies shattered where they stood.

Mum yelped, shielding her face on instinct, and whirled around. “Lizzie! What’s going on?”

“Mum?” Lizzie planted her other hand behind her and pushed herself up, just a bit. “Get away from me.”

“What on Earth do you—”

“Get away from me!” Lizzie yelled, in a voice too loud for her body to have made. Mum yelped and ran.

Lizzie only hoped she was running hard enough. Whatever was building inside her, whatever was giving her this power, she was only using the tiniest fraction of it—like a pinpoint leak in a dam. Not enough to relieve the pressure, no matter how hard the water spewed from there.

It wouldn’t be long now. She heaved breaths. Slowly at first, but faster and faster, as if predicting the moment when—

* * *

Everything was rubble. And Lizzie didn’t feel dead. But she didn’t feel very alive either.

“Lizzie,” a voice shouted into her ruined eardrums. She couldn’t tell if the person was right next to her, or a million miles away. “Oh my god, Lizzie!”

Lizzie’s head flopped to the side, and she saw a woman with a hat. Then she sighed out a breath, felt something warm spreading across her leg, and then it all went dark.

* * *

_Paste, slap! Do the next one. Paste, slap! Do the next one._

Akko hummed a song to herself, keeping her melody in rhythm with the work she was doing. Paste a load of Sucy’s adhesive on the wall, slap a poster over it, walk to the next available stretch of wall. She had enough posters and adhesive to cover Luna Nova, tip to toe!

That last part was probably an exaggeration—she hadn’t done the math—but she definitely had enough enthusiasm.

“Akko?” said a familiar voice—less snooty than the version imprinted upon her memory, but still recognizable. Akko turned to see Hannah England peering at one of the posters she’d put up. “What’s a.... MOP?”

“No, read the small text,” said Barbara from next to her, leaning closer to the wall than Hannah. “Magic Outreach Program.”

“But the initials are way bigger.” Hannah backed up a few feet, holding her thumbs and index fingers at right angles to frame the poster. “Someone’s going to look at this and think, ‘Why are there a bunch of posters saying MOP in capital letters?’”

Akko rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Well, doesn’t someone have an interest in graphic design.” Then she shook herself; they were friends now, or at least pleasant… not-quite-friends. Acquaintances! That was the word. “Yeah, it’s this idea I had the other day! Did you notice how a lot of the first years aren’t very good with magic?”

Barbara opened her mouth to answer, and then the explosion happened. Followed by the screaming.

Without conscious effort, all three of them flattened themselves against the wall. A moment later, a tanned, muscular witch sprinted past, ducking as she ran to avoid a spell that flew over her head. Her hair looked kind of… balloony, and kept dripping ink behind her—

“You turned my hair into an octopus!” she yelled.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry let me fix it!” screamed the witch hot on her tail, wearing a hijab and pointing her wand forward her. “Let me fix it let me fix it!”

“You turned my hair into an OCTOPUS!”

“I was trying to practice color changing spells! I was aiming for my own hair!”

“ _How did you miss!?_ ”

“Mani!” Akko called out.

The other witch kept screaming as she escaped, but Mani stumbled to a halt, nearly falling over.

Akko smiled. “I know you want to fix it, but if you’re not careful you’ll probably turn her hair into two octopuses. Trust me, I’ve been there.” She looked off into the distance for a moment, before refocusing her attention. “Ah, memories… uh, anyway, just let her go to the nurse.”

“But, I—okay,” Mani said, staring at the floor.

“Hey, don’t worry.” Akko leaned in and chuckled. “Her hair didn’t explode, right? Progress!”

“I guess.” Mani turned away, still looking at the ground. “I’ve… got to be somewhere. Bye.”

“Bye!” Akko said, waving as if her arm were caught in a gale as Mani slumped away. “See you at our session this weekend!” When Mani had gone completely, she turned back to face Barbara and Hannah with a preemptive, “Be nice. I’m spending Saturdays with her trying to get her magic under control. She really is getting better!” She tapped her chin. “What were we talking about?”

“You were asking if we’d noticed how the first years weren’t very good with magic,” Hannah said.

“And for the record,” Barbara added, “yeah.”

“Right!” Akko pointed her finger in the air. “Because a lot of them are like I was—they’ve never had a chance to do magic before! Either because they didn’t have magic, or their families weren’t magic, or both!” She groaned. “And don’t tell anyone, but I am sick and tired of trying to tutor them one by one. So we’re organizing!”

“Organizing into a mop.” Hannah pursed her lips.

“Magic Outreach Program!”

The pursing of lips looked as though Hannah were trying to hold back a smile. “Like a bunch of spongy floppy strands of yarn, organized into a majestic… mop.”

“It’s a working title, okay?”

“Then why is it on the posters?” Barbara pointed at one. It had a very well drawn (in Akko’s humble opinion) picture of a witch riding a broom in front of a full moon, above a bunch of tearaway strips giving a place, date, and time.

“You’re not even holding it at Luna Nova?” Hannah asked, sidling up beside Barbara again.

“Well, I asked Professor Finnelan if there was any room at school where I could be supervising a bunch of students who weren’t any good at magic, without any teachers there or anything.” Akko frowned. “She clutched her chest and said something about her pills, so I’m guessing that meant no. So we’re in the park at Blytonbury!”

“Right.” Hannah squinted at the poster. “What’s with the stick figure? And is she supposed to be riding a mop?”

“Stop with the mops—it’s a broom! Art’s hard, okay?”

“Seriously, though, the title’s on the posters.” Barbara said, a little smirk bending her mouth. “And if it’s on the posters, then when you say working title, you mean more specifically… title.”

“Forget about the poster!” Akko shook her arms as if resetting an Etch A Sketch. “The point is, someone’s gotta help all these witches, because they don’t have access to any of the resources the rest of us do!”

She stopped. She frowned. Hannah and Barbara had clamped their hands in front of their mouths, and they were shaking a bit, and luckily it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening. “What’s so funny about that?”

“Oh, Akko!” Hannah said, her voice muffled behind her hand—not that Akko couldn’t hear the mirth. “I know Diana told us not to make fun of you anymore, but sometimes you make it _really hard_.”

Barbara sucked in a big breath. “Look around you, Akko. Every student you’re trying to bundle into your mop is already in Luna Nova. You know, the best magic school in the world? What exactly do you mean, ‘don’t have access to the resources’?”

Akko blinked. “Oh, right.” She blinked again. “Oh. _Ohhhh_.”

“Not to mention they’ve got all the teachers and the huge library. If they want the help, they can find it already!” Hannah rolled her eyes, then stepped forward with—to her credit—a genuine smile on her face. “Look, do you want to go get lunch together? I was wondering if we could talk about some of Professor Croix’s homework. We’ve both been having real—”

“You’re right!”

Akko surged forward and grabbed Hannah and Barbara, one by each shoulder. “The students in here _do_ have those resources. But there’s gotta be a bunch of witches who aren’t students at Luna Nova!”

She clasped her hands together. “If I wanna be serious about this, I’ve gotta bring some of this magic to the people outside the school!” She ran off, yelling over her shoulder, “Thanks, girls! See you later!”

* * *

Barbara and Hannah were quiet for a few seconds.

“What,” Barbara eventually said, “did we just do?”

* * *

Mani’s life was one of contradictions.

On the one hand: weekends spent working with the crazy girl who’d brought back magic and decided to be everyone’s personal tutor. Days of shoving as much magical energy as she could manage into her anti-magic device, then trying the simplest spells she could think of. Succeeding only one in twenty tries—then two in twenty, three in twenty. Actual, genuine progress, Akko had said.

On the other hand: the big red F on the test she was holding. Holding in her other hand, even.

“Whoa!” yelled Tiffany’s voice to her left, and then two hands grabbed her roughly on her shoulders and yanked her to the right. Mani looked up in time to see some passersby walk thoughtlessly through the space she’d just occupied, eyes glued on his phone—but then again, she was hardly one to talk. “Pay attention,” Tiff hissed. “We’re on the sidewalk!”

Mani sighed, then folded up the test and put it in a back pocket. She hadn’t really had a chance to look around Blytonbury the previous and single time she was here, but it was a charming enough town now that she wasn’t desperately looking for the leyline. The shops looked like they’d come out of a fantasy novel, contrasted by the cars that rolled past and the people occupied with their phones.

She took a deep breath.

“What’s eating ya?” said Char, reclined upon her brooms.

“Never you mind.” Mani sighed. “Just feels like… I should be doing better. At magic.”

“Oh well.”

Tiff glanced over at Char. “Oh well? Not even a ‘sorry about that’? Not even asking what’s going wrong?”

“Whaddya want? I’m exhausted!” Char said, still lying down in a flying hammock. “Wish I was in bed,” she said, still in the same flying hammock. Tiff rolled her eyes. “Bed is _great_.”

“Fine. Sorry about that, Mani, and what’s going wrong?” Tiff said, turning to her.

“The teachers are saying I’m having trouble focusing on what I really want to do.” Mani sighed, then added a grumble of, “I wonder what’s distracting me. Can’t be the fear of blowing up, now can it?”

“Well, I suppose the teachers know what they’re talking about, Tiff said, smiling past her. “Just keep focusing and you’ll get it for sure! If you want, I can help you with that, if you’re not getting enough help already….”

She kept talking. She really was nice, in her way, but she didn’t exactly know when to stop. Mani winced and grimaced, and while Tiff didn’t see it, Char seemed to. She let out a huge, attention grabbing groan that cut Tiff off. “ _Bed, pleeeeease_. Why are we in town again at this _unholy_ hour of morning?”

“It’s ten, Char. And we are picking up my broom, and engaging in friendly interpersonal socialization besides.” Tiff snorted marched forward, and Mani was put in mind of that friendliest of individuals, the drill sergeant.

“We can socialize interpersonally all you want in bed,” Char said, and Mani nearly choked. “And you have a broom.”

“I mean the broom that got broken in the Forest of Arcturus.” Tiffany groaned. “The one that doesn’t try to talk to me. I swear to goodness.” She glanced over at Mani. “Why are you blushing?”

“No reason,” Mani said hurriedly. “Erm, do you know what the situation is with it? Or… her?” She squinted. “Do we call that thing… that… entity? English is confusing.” She took a breath, then plowed forward: “Do we call it the Shooting Star now, or Scarlette?”

It had only been a few days ago that Tiffany had run back to their room, ranting about how her semi-sentient broom contained the soul of an ancient and powerful witch. This had sounded cooler than it had actually ended up being: Tiffany had eventually ended up putting the broom outside at nights because, according to her, “She whispers.” And Mani was sure she heard something when there was no other sound in the dead of night—like if tinnitus had lyrics.

Tiffany had been spending time in the library recently. Maybe she’d come up with more information?

But judging by the way Tiffany was throwing her hands up in the air, probably not. “Not a clue! Not a gosh darned clue. And I still have no idea what she’s talking about… though it’s not like she does either. ‘Find the rest of me?’ But she’s right here!”

She sighed, scratching her forehead. “I guess being stuck in a broom for a thousand years messed with her—”

“ _Excuse me!_ ”

That wasn’t any of them. That was a very loud, very commanding woman’s voice, and it was coming from behind them.

It also sounded outrageously out of breath. The three of them turned around to see a woman sprinting toward them, red in the face. She skidded to a halt in front of them and held up a hand. “One second,” she puffed.

Mani, Tiff, and Char waited one second. And then another thirty or so. After all, the woman had a police officer’s hat and badge and truncheon: it was probably not a good idea to leave while she was recovering. She also had a holster, though instead of having a gun, it seemed to be filled with… kindling?

Finally she stood upright. “Hello! You have just entered Blytonbury town limits!”

Stretching the definition of ‘just’ there, Mani thought. “Aren’t the town limits back there?” was what she said instead, pointing backward with her thumb.

The policewoman frowned. “Hello! You have! _At some point today!_ Entered Blytonbury town limits! Are you with me so far!”

“Yes,” Tiff said.

The woman drew herself up even straighter. “My name is Officer Widdecombe! I have been chosen by the mayor of Blytonbury! To enforce law and order during this difficult time! Are you with me so far!”

“Yes,” Tiff said. She looked a little… annoyed was the term Mani decided on, because there wasn’t any English word she knew that precisely meant ‘feeling the emotion evoked by being forced to watch children’s programming, the kind that asks you if you can count to five’.

“Good!” The woman straightened her uniform, as if it weren’t already entirely straight. “Due to recent events! The great Mayor Bloomington has become concerned about the misuse of magic in our community! He has become concerned that certain malicious or misguided actors! May use their magical abilities to disrupt the peace! Are you with me so far!”

“Yes,” Tiff said.

“Good! Give me your wands.”

“Ye—” Tiff said, and then blinked. “What?”

Officer Widdecombe held her hand out, and there was stillness for a second. She didn’t seem as enthusiastic at the moment—a lot more serious instead. “Your wands,” she repeated. Mani glanced down at her holster again and realized with a sudden start that it wasn’t kindling she was keeping in there.

“I beg your pardon,” Tiff said. “Is it possible that I’ve misheard you?”

“Yes it is! If you heard something that was not, ‘Give me your wands’.” Widdecombe’s fingers twitched. “Now. Or you may leave Blytonbury.”

“But… how will we get them back?”

“Upon leaving the town. You may pick them up at City Hall.” Another twitch of the fingers. “Wands.”

“Oh, I mean… one second.” Tiffany pulled out her wand, did a little motion, and mumbled something under her breath. A tag with Tiffany Vandergard on it appeared at the end of a string, tied around Tiff’s wand. Then she looked to her side. “You too, girls.”

Mani squirmed. “But….”

“We’re only going to be in town for a while,” Tiff said. “It’ll be fine, Mani. Listen to the nice policewoman, and I’ll tag your wand.”

Mani… squirmed again, but she squirmed her hand down to her belt, and squirmed her wand out of her belt, and squirmed it into Tiff’s hand. Tiff did the same incantation that Mani couldn’t really hear, and a similar tag—a bit larger, to accommodate Mani’s full name—appeared on hers. “You too, Char,” Tiff said, beckoning like the policewoman. “Come on.”

Char nodded, and reached for her belt—and then frowned. “Ah, bugger.” She patted herself down, then said in a loud voice, “Oh, I feel like a right bloody git.” She raised her empty hands and sighed in exaggerated fashion. “Forgot it at the dorm like a drongo.”

“Excuse me?” Tiff stared at her friend. “Like a what, exactly?”

“Please allow me to check that!” Officer Widdecombe shouted in her quick, staccato rhythm. “Stand up!”

Char grunted, but slid off her hammock and stood. Officer Widdecombe walked up close to her and patted her down. Char frowned with obvious annoyance.

“All clean!” Officer Widdecombe shouted, and took Tiffany and Mani’s wands. “You may keep your brooms provided you do not use them to fly within Blytonbury airspace! Also!” she added, turning to Tiffany. “While I appreciate your willingness to comply! Do not use magic again inside Blytonbury! Or you will be fined!”

“What? But—”

“Thank you for doing your part to keep our community safe!” The woman shoved their wands into the holster, then saluted. “Farewell!” She sprinted off. A few seconds later, Mani heard a distant cry of, “Excuse me!”

Mani heaved some breaths. “Oh no,” she said. “Why did I do that.”

“Because… a police officer told you to,” Tiff explained, and Mani wished she wouldn’t. “What’s the problem?”

“You know what the problem is!” Mani rummaged in her pocket and pulled out her anti-magic sink. “I can’t vent magic without that wand!”

“We don’t have to be here all day.” Tiff probably thought she sounded comforting, or reasonable. “We’ll get my broom, retrieve our wands, and go home. You won’t have any problems in the meantime. It will be fine.”

“It’s not always consistent! What if it builds up fast today! What if….” Mani found herself at a loss for words as the fear clawed up her throat.

Char, meanwhile, did not find herself at a loss for words. “Eurrrrgh,” she said, standing with a stoop. Mani wasn’t confident she’d ever seen Char stand up straight. “Walking sucks. Why do you people do it?”

“Char!” Mani managed.

“What? Wasn’t listening. What’s happening again?”

“I’m worried I’m going to explode,” Mani said, flapping her arms, “and I don’t mean figuratively, without my wand!”

“Oh, okay. Borrow mine.”

“What? Oh, thank you.”

Mani took the offered wand and tucked it into her belt. A few seconds later, she did a double take.

“Give it back when you’re done,” Char said, slouching forward.

Tiff rounded on her, blocking her path. “Char! You lied to a cop?” she hissed.

“A bit.”

“That’s illegal!”

“It’s not.”

“But—we’re not allowed!”

“So?”

“Why? You’re violating the law!”

“I’m an Ozzie. Violating English law’s a proud family tradition.”

“This is no laughing matter!” Tiff said, as Mani laughed nervously. Tiff pointed in the direction that Officer Widdecombe had run off in. “I ought to go and tell her exactly what kind of crime you’ve just committed.”

“All right.” Char shrugged and leaned against a nearby shop. “If you don’t mind Mani blowing up. Fine by me.”

Tiff sputtered for a few seconds. “She’s not going to blow up!” Though judging by the noises she was making, Tiff might be about to blow at any second.

“Can I just say,” Mani said, raising her hand, “that I’m grateful for this act of charity?”

“ _Charity?_ ” Tiff grabbed two handfuls of her hair and pulled for several more seconds. Finally she sucked in a breath and let go. “Let’s go get my broom and get out.”

“Sounds good to me.” Char yawned and slumped her way along behind Tiff. “Your broom that you can’t ride because of someone else’s made up reasons.”

“Perfectly good reasons!” Tiff groaned. “Am I the only one here who was raised to respect authority?”

“Nah.” Char was quiet for a calculated few seconds. Mani could hear the build up to the coming punchline: “Just the only one raised to respect stupid-arse authority.”

“It is not stupid! And watch your potty mouth!”

“It is. I won’t.”

“Why?”

“‘cuz it’s going to blow Mani up.”

“ _She’s not going to—_ ”

Mani knew well enough to tune them out: this could take a few minutes. Instead she looked around for anyone else who might be watching. When no one caught her eye, she pointed Char’s wand at her magisink and whispered, “ _Pharus_.”

The jet of light flared briefly at her wand’s point, before being immediately and harmlessly absorbed by the anti-magic sink. Mani did it a few more times, and felt lighter after each. Then she took a deep breath, smiled, and tucked Char’s wand beneath her shirt, out of sight.

“How’d you get it past her?” she whispered to Char, as Tiff went off on some monologue.

Char smiled. “Magic.” A little chuckle. “Not like magic magic. Stage magic. Sleight of hand. What non-witches use ‘cuz they’re jealous we can make stuff go boom.”

“Ah.” Mani frowned. “So you….”

“Palmed it.”

“You are full of surprises.”

“I aim to please.” Char smirked. “Or I would if I aimed for anything.”

“Are you two even listening to me at all?” Tiff yelled.

* * *

It didn’t take long to reach the Magic Item Cafe—a type of establishment Mani had never seen in Tunisia, but based on what Tiff and Char had told her, it was some sort of combination coffee shop, pawn shop, and post office. Which didn’t seem logical, but then again, it was magic.

Something else unexpected was, she hadn’t seen the throngs she’d been expecting. It was a nice day; the sun shone bright on the brisk, cool streets; this should have been prime time for witches from school to come into town to explore. And Mani had seen a few of them, but—well, they certainly didn’t seem very eager to explore. Maybe it had something to do with the wand ban.

In any case, they had arrived. The door jingled as they walked in, and Tiff said, “Hi, I’m here for a—”

“Come on in!”

Before Mani knew what was happening, the three of them were being whisked to a table and had menus thrust into their hands. “Can I start you off with water to drink?” said the proprietor, an overweight man with a mullet and unflattering beard, who nevertheless looked quite friendly. Even frantically friendly. “Or maybe lemonade?” he added.

“What? No!” Tiff put down the menu firmly. “I’m just here to retrieve my broom. Addressed to one Tiffany Vandergard?”

“Huh?” The proprietor seemed to deflate. “Oh. Okay.” He trudged back behind the counter and bent down.

Mani glanced around the cafe. It reflected the town’s lack of activity to an extreme: the only other person inside was a brunette engrossed in her textbook, with a full glass of water in front of her. “Er,” Mani said, raising her hand, “I could buy a lemonade.”

“Oh, thank you!” The man breathed a sigh of relief as he stood again, holding a long and narrow package that had to be Tiff’s old broom. Tiff vibrated as it came into view. “Sorry for the pressure, it’s just… business has been slow in the past week.”

“The anti-witch laws?” Char offered.

“Yeah, witches don’t wanna come out here as much.” The proprietor sighed. “I mean, I can see why they’d make the laws, what with that girl blowing herself up and all, but it kinda screws me up as a magic item cafe owner—”

The sound of a spittake filled the air, cutting off the proprietor’s words. When Mani glanced up at the source of the words, she saw that Tiffany’s hair was wet, and—of all people—Akko had bolted upright, flinging down her book and water. “After a girl what?” she sputtered.

“Hey!” Tiff yelled, bolting to her feet.

“Oh, hi, Tiff!” Akko cracked a brief smile. “It’s weird how we keep running into each other. Are—are you stalking me, or…?”

Tiff stared, and her hair dripped quietly on the floor.

“Anyway. After a girl what?” Akko slammed her hands on the counter.

“Look, Akko, I don’t know what to tell ya!” The proprietor shrugged. “It’s not like I was there. I mean, I heard the boom—the whole town heard that. Apparently some girl was misusing magic and blew herself up. And her house. Rest of the family got out fine, but….”

Mani covered her mouth with her hand. “Is she….”

“Oh, the girl’s alive. She’s in the hospital.”

Mani breathed out in relief.

“But a bunch of people got up in arms after that. Something must be done, etcetera.” The proprietor shrugged. “I’m not exactly a witch, so I don’t have a stake in this, but—”

“This is ridiculous!” Akko pounded her fists on the counter again. “Yanno how I had to get my wand in here, just because someone blew up her house?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a chameleon.

Tiff stared at it. “Is that….”

“Yes, I had to transform my wand.” Akko frowned. “Which reminds me. Does anyone have a wand I can borrow, so I can untransform my wand? I didn’t really think it through.”

Mani sighed and handed Char’s over. Akko beamed. “Thanks! _Metamorphie faciesse!_ ” A puff of smoke, and she was holding two wands, one of which she handed back. “You’re a—wait, how did you sneak yours in—actually, nevermind!”

She jumped up onto the counter. The proprietor sighed but didn’t contest it. He must have met her before.

“The point is,” Akko declared, jabbing skyward, “there’s a whole town full of people who won’t have the chance to see how wonderful magic is, because of some ridiculous law! We need to show them, and get the law changed!” Her finger went down to point at the three of them. “Are you with me!”

In the few seconds that followed, Char let out a long yawn.

Akko deflated. “Girls?”

“I’m sure that if they put the law in place,” Tiffany said, wiping her hair off with a napkin and all the dignity she could muster, “then they had a good reason. So no, Akko Kagari. I’m just here to get my broom—” she stood up, walked over to the counter, and swiped the package off it, whereupon she clutched it like an elongated teddy bear “—and get along with my day.”

“But—” Akko’s mouth worked for a moment. “Char?”

Char shrugged. “Sorry, big sis. Sounds like way too much effort.”

Akko sighed. “In that case, you’re probably not interested either, Mani.”

“Of course she isn’t,” Tiff said with a little snort. “What is it with you and dragging people along on—”

Mani held up her hand in Tiff’s direction, and looked in Akko’s. “You’re going to be teaching people?”

“Yeah! That was the idea even before I heard about this dumb ban!” Akko’s eyes started sparkling again in that inspiring, dangerous way of hers.

Mani took a deep breath and dived in. “Everyone everywhere should have the chance to learn magic.” She stepped forward. “I’m with you.”

Akko whooped and pumped a fist. Tiff’s jaw dropped. “Mani!” she hissed. “You could get in serious trouble!”

“She’ll be fine, she’ll be with me!” Akko flapped her hand, clearly heedless of the expression on Tiff’s face—the one that indicated how she saw those statements as mutually exclusive. “We’re gonna track down that policewoman and see if she’ll come around! Later, girls!”

She hopped down and grabbed Mani’s hand. “Come on! You’ll be learning too!”

Mani sighed and let herself be dragged.

* * *

Tiff grimaced. “This is going to end badly.”

“Guess we’ll see.” Char slurped up some of her water, which she absolutely did not need to do—she could have sipped it like a normal person. “Yo, shopkeep!” she called out. “Can I have some crisps?”

“It’s okay,” Tiff murmured into her package, “Tiffany’s here. We’re together again.” She patted the box tenderly.

“One order of potato chips, coming up!” The proprietor chuckled. “Man, that Akko Kagari. I remember the first time she came into this shop, and demanded to ‘borrow’ our prized Shooting Star. Guess she hasn’t changed a bit, huh?”

Tiffany’s eyes twitched. Several times.

The proprietor pulled out a bag of chips, then walked around the table and into a faceful of suddenly-standing, flammably-furious Tiffany Vandergard. She breathed in, hard, and started bellowing.

“ _YOU’RE THE ONE WHO CHAINED UP THE SHOOTING—_ ”

* * *

“Officer! Hellooooooooo, officer?”

The problem with all these old English towns, in Akko’s opinion, was how they were planned. To put it another way, they weren’t planned. Houses had just kind of happened, and if they formed rows, it was a happy coincidence—but heaven help you if you were expecting a grid.

If only she could fly! At least, if only she could fly without making the person she was trying to talk to angry. Oh well! Down another alley she went.

“Akko,” Mani panted, “can we… slow down?”

“Are we going fast?” Akko slowed her pace a bit, as Mani dragged behind her—not still holding hands, because that would have made moving awkward. “It’s just a jog.”

“You… jog fast.” Mani put her hands on her knees. “And it’s… been five minutes.”

“You’re tired after that?” Akko shrugged. “You need to work on your cardio, girl.”

“ _Excuse me!_ ”

“That’s her!” Akko bolted. She heard a groan from Mani behind her. Come to think of it, maybe Akko did do an unusual amount of running… or everyone else did an unusual, uh, non amount?

She burst from the alleyway, looked left, and saw Officer Widdecombe accosting some freshwitches. “Excuse _me!_ ” Akko yelled, barging forward.

Officer Widdecombe turned around, eyebrow raised.

“Hi! I’m Akko Kagari! I guess we met before, when you tried to confiscate my wand and I told you I forgot to bring one!” Akko waved cheerfully. “I don’t think I ever got your first name.”

“For the purposes of this interaction! My first name is Officer!” Officer Widdecombe nodded smartly.

Eugh. “Fine. Officer. I have a bit of a proposition for you!” She made sure to waggle her eyebrows, because that was what people did when they wanted to look intriguing.

The officer kept her neutral expression, but somehow it became more like a frown while staying motionless. Maybe it was from the slight narrowing of her eyes. The witches behind her tried to take a step forward, and her hand sprung up at them like a jump scare in a haunted house. “Don’t.”

The middle one of the three witches, a dark haired girl with her arm in a cast, glared daggers.

“State your proposition!” Officer Widdecombe said.

“I was thinking….” Akko leaned closer. “So, like, did you see any of my posters? About the Magic Outreach Program?” When Officer Widdecombe’s only response was a blank stare, Akko sighed. “About the MOP?”

The recognition was immediate. “Yes! I did! I took down some of those posters! Because they were not on allowed poster-bearing surfaces!”

“Oh, great.”

“And obviously! Such a gathering would be inadvisable! Given recent events!”

“Yeah, about that.” Akko moved her hands in an uneasy way, as if kneading invisible dough. “I was thinking… what if we… did do such a gathering?”

Officer Widdecombe stared at her. Akko had been stared at like that by a lot of people, but none of them had been police officers. Even so, the practice helped. “I know it sounds crazy! And a bit illegal. But—”

“ _Entirely_ illegal!”

“But think about it. This whole thing started because some poor girl used magic wrong, right? It’s not her fault, she just didn’t know how to do it!” Akko leaned in further. “But what I’m saying is, let’s take all those kids who don’t know how to use magic, and teach them some stuff! At least the basics! So they’re being safe about it!”

Officer Widdecombe’s neutral expression was marred somewhat by a grimace. “But the law—”

“Come on!” Akko flung her arms wide. “You’re not gonna stop ‘em from doing it in their houses, right? And come to think of it, I definitely saw someone with a wand inside the city, just today!”

Officer Widdecombe looked up sharply, and Mani stiffened behind her, and Akko hurried out her next words: “I didn’t really see them up close, though. Very nondescript person. The point is,” she finished, throwing her arms down, “that you can take it from someone who knows. If these kids don’t have someone helping them, they’re gonna get into a world of trouble all on their own. But with us keeping an eye out….”

Widdecombe squinted. “Us?”

“Yeah, of course you’d be watching to make sure it was okay!” Akko put on a winning smile—and she did intend to win. “Think about it! Your oversight, and my teaching, working together to help keep a generation of witches out of trouble, and keep the peace even better than before! Are you with me so far?”

Officer Widdecombe looked down and to the side. Other than her frantic sprinting from checkpoint to checkpoint, it was the first time Akko had seen her in any position other than ramrod-straight. “That… does make sense,” she finally said, in a more normal tone.

Akko beamed.

_“However!”_

Oh, okay. Akko would just go screw herself, then.

Officer Widdecombe went rigid again. “While that idea sounds reasonable in principle! I do not have enough faith in your character! To believe you could effectively teach! A large group of witches!”

Akko groaned, looking off to the side. But then she stopped groaning, and started thinking.

“Your clothes are disheveled! Your manner is sloppy! I do not believe! You would be a decent teacher!”

“So….” Akko frowned, but she felt like smiling, and she wasn’t sure that the corners of her mouth weren’t turning up. “If someone else gave you this proposal… someone super respectable and level headed… you’d be okay with it?”

“In such a hypothetical! That might be possible! But we may never know!”

Akko beamed: no point trying to hide it now. She whirled around to Mani. “I’ll be back in, like, half an hour!”

She sprinted away, toward the leyline connection, and incidentally past the three witches whom Officer Widdecombe had accosted. “Now!” Widdecombe was saying. “I believe I was confiscating your wands!”

Akko glanced back, just in time to see the black-haired girl with a look of pure venom on her face.

* * *

“Hello,” said the calm, measured voice of Akko’s favorite person in the world. “My name is Diana Cavendish. I trust this resolves the matter?”

Akko was smiling so hard she was worried her mouth would start touching her eyes.

Officer Widdecombe looked up from where they’d found her: panting against a wall. “You,” she managed, and held up a finger. “One second.”

“It’s quite all right,” Diana said. “I can do the talking.” She smiled gently. “It looks as though you recognize me.” Officer Widdecombe clearly wanted to say something, but she didn’t have enough of her breath back to do anything other than nod. Diana continued: “Yes, I imagined so.”

Akko smiled a little wider, reflecting that only Diana could have said that without sounding arrogant. “And if what Akko has told me is correct,” Diana said, “you’re commendably amenable to the idea of holding public magic classes, on the sole condition that they are properly overseen.”

“Sure,” Officer Widdecombe said.

Diana’s smile tilted a little at that. Not enough to really be noticeable, and certainly not enough for most people to call it a _smirk_ , but then again, Akko had insider knowledge. “Well, in that case I don’t see any more reason for delay. Do you?” She strode forward.

Akko strode forward right next to her, and slipped her hand around Diana’s. “You’re the best.”

Diana made a little ‘mm’ noise of discontentment. Well, that wasn’t exactly it—more like contentment that knew it should be discontented regardless. “Akko, we’re in a busy public street.”

“You’re still the best in public.” Akko made a grumpy little groan in her throat, but let go regardless. She knew the Hierarchy, after all, and this was Level Three. She could content herself with being right in Diana’s personal space. “What I mean is, thanks for coming to help.”

“Of course.” Diana smiled, just enough for Akko to see the note of humor in it. “Keeping you out of trouble is one of my foremost responsibilities, after all.”

“And getting you into trouble is one of mine!” Akko sidled a little closer and rested her head on Diana’s shoulder, because to hell with Level Three, actually. It wasn’t actually more comfortable—Diana was kind of boney—but that was so not the point. “We are such good girlfriends.”

Diana sighed, but tilted her own head so that it rested on Akko’s. Akko got a sensation inside her body like the New Year’s ball dropping in Times Square.

And then she tilted it away. “She’s looking at us,” she said. Akko sighed. The thing was that dating Diana Cavendish was, of course, the best thing in the world. Except for those things about it that… weren’t. Like the Hierarchy.

When they were alone Akko got Level One access to cuddling with Diana—nothing was off the table, except stuff that was explicitly sexual, and to be honest Akko wasn’t sure if she was ready for that either so that was fine. Level Two applied when in the walls of Luna Nova, or otherwise only in the company of friends. Hand holding, quick hugs, and that sort of stuff were allowed.

Level Three was in public. It was right now. It sucked. Akko didn’t push it any further, but she knew that one day she’d need to convince Diana to get rid of Level Three. And maybe make some pushes toward opening up the hitherto undreamt of Level Zero.

Oh well. That was a discussion for another time.


	14. Are You With Me? (2)

A beam of light shot up from Akko’s wand and exploded into noiseless fireworks far above the park (Officer Widdecombe had insisted upon the _noiseless_ part). “Welcome,” Akko declared, dappled by multicolored light from above, “to the world of magic!”

There were about a dozen people there to be declared at, maybe two dozen tops—and that was including Mani, Akko, and Diana. Some were about Akko’s age, most were pre-teens, and a few seemed to be in at least their twenties. Mani looked a bit uncomfortable, since she was sitting next to the littler kids, but she _always_ looked a bit uncomfortable. On the other hand, everyone else looked pretty excited to be there.

So Akko _beamed_ from her position on the gazebo. Diana stood beside her, smiling in a rather more measured fashion. Officer Widdecombe was off to the side, leaning against a tree, watching everything with eyes that didn’t seem to blink enough.

“And welcome,” Akko continued, waving her wand in front of her, “to the first ever meeting of the Magic Outreach Program!” The sparkles shimmered their way into being words: namely, the Magic Outreach Program.

One of the younger kids’ eyes lit up, and he yelled, “Mop!”

“No, it’s not….” Akko sighed. “Okay, sure, fine. The first ever meeting of the MOP.”

“Mop! Mop! Mop!” The rest of the kids took up the chant. The adults looked on with bemusement.

“Please stop chanting,” Diana said. A few seconds later, when that obviously didn’t work, she did a little motion with her wand and said, “ _Ssh_.”

A cold wind blew over the gathering, coming straight from Diana’s wand. As it rustled the grass, and snatched at the leaves on the trees, and tousled the children’s hair, the noise it made echoed Diana’s “ _Ssh_.” This time, it worked. The youngsters fell quiet, awe in their eyes.

“Thank you!” Akko waved. “That genius standing next to me is Diana Cavendish, and I’m Atsuko Kagari but you can call me Akko, and we’re going to start teaching you how wonderful magic is, and how to use it to do cool stuff!” She beamed, then glanced at Officer Widdecombe, who was giving her the stinkeye. “Aaaaand, of course, how to use it responsibly and safely!”

She hopped down the steps of the gazebo, spreading her arms wide. “So, before we get started. Any questions?”

There were a few precious seconds of silence, and then one child spoke up. “Are you really the witch who rode that weird shiny broom?”

Akko’s mouth stayed open.

“And then that weird red pointy broom?” the child continued.

“I, um, I meant about the class—”

“How did you breathe in space!” one of the teenagers called out.

“Can you show us how you stood on a broom?” cried another.

“How did you get on all our TVs?”

“That’s actually a good question,” one of the older would-be witches said. “How _did_ you get on all our TVs?”

“Erm,” Akko said. The heat was rising in her face. “I guess I could ask Professor Croix—”

“Where’d that missile come from?”

“Who were those other witches who helped you two up? We didn’t get a good look at their faces in the broadcast!”

“How’d you stop the missile?”

“Are you really the reason we can use magic now?”

“Can I have your autograph?”

“Can we take a selfie?”

“Can you sign my face?”

They were all staring at her with those huge, adoring eyes. All that _expectation_.

Akko found herself hyperventilating. “I, um…” She held up one quivering index finger. “I… will be right back!” And with that, she bolted around the back of the gazebo, and let herself breathe a mile a minute. The sweat gathered at her temples.

All that _expectation._

It was probably only a few seconds later, even though it felt like an hour—but eventually, another sound penetrated her world of clammy skin and pounding heartbeats. “What’s wrong, Akko?” Diana said.

Akko looked up to see Diana standing over her, leaning on the gazebo’s railing. She glanced back behind Diana to see a floating message that probably said “We’ll be right back”, not that she could read it backwards, and it seemed to be playing elevator music. Behind that, the prospective witches were all looking on in confusion.

“You can’t possibly be suffering stage fright,” Diana said, in a tone that sounded like she was thinking out loud more than talking to Akko. “I distinctly remember you performing for a much larger crowd at the Samhain Festival. And on the day of Starfall, when you performed for Planet Earth herself.”

“Totally different,” Akko mumbled.

“How, exactly?”

“Apparently, I have a reputation now!” She threw up her hands, wailing, “I’ve never had a _reputation_ before! I mean, I’ve had a bad reputation before, but that was fine!”

She heard shimmering, and looked up to see a glimmering hemisphere around them: it looked like Diana had cast a zone of silence. Diana pocketed her wand and frowned, leaning forward. “Bad reputations are… good?”

“Bad reputations are _great!_ You’ve got nowhere to go but up!” Akko groaned. “But now they think I’m some kind of super cool celebrity witch! And I mean, like—have you _met_ me? What if I let them down?” Her head slumped forward. “What happens when I’m not the super cool girl who brought back magic that they’re expecting?”

Diana made a little noise in her throat, and unless Akko was very wrong indeed, it sounded like a chuckle. “I think I know what that kind of pressure is like.”

“How could you possibly—” Akko cut herself off. “What am I saying? Of course you know exactly what that’s like. Way better than I do.” She sighed. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Diana hopped up over the railing, then let herself down so she was sitting next to Akko. She sat with her knees by her chest: it was presumably the preferable alternative to letting her legs touch the dirt. “Perhaps not as much as you’d think.”

“Mm?”

“To begin with,” Diana said, looking Akko in the eyes, “whose good reputation allowed you to hold this lesson in the first place?”

“Oh. Duh.” Akko smacked herself in the forehead with her palm.

“Precisely. Listen.” Diana put her arm over Akko’s shoulders. A rare case of Level Two contact, but everyone who might see was on the other side of the gazebo, and the park was otherwise empty. “You’re on your way to becoming a truly great witch, and with that comes a reputation—but it’s not a price you have to pay. It’s another asset, another tool you can use, like your magic.”

She laughed a little. “I mean, look at me—I’m minor nobility trying to restore my house’s good name. And between my magic and my reputation, I can say with absolute certainty that my reputation is proving more vital in that crusade.”

Akko stared. The idea of something being more powerful than magic… that was going to take some time to believe.

Diana laughed a little more. “I see that look on your face, but it’s true. And now you have that power too. They’ll listen to you out there—they may even hang on your every word—and all you have to do is be the amazing witch I already know you are.”

Akko took a deep breath. It was easier to breathe deep, looking at Diana’s smile.

“Excuse me.”

The two of them looked up to see that Officer Widdecombe had entered their zone of silence. “Is this thing going to continue, or am I going to tell the crowd to disperse?”

Diana hurriedly removed her arm from Akko’s shoulder: it was time for Level Three again. She then stood and tapped her wand twice against the inside surface of the hemisphere: it vanished as instantaneously as a soap bubble being popped. “I believe we’re ready. Isn’t that right, Akko?”

Akko bolted to her feet with a beaming grin for an answer. She whirled around, vaulted the gazebo’s railing in a single bound, and sprinted back to where the students were waiting. “Thanks for waiting!” she said, waving her hand to clear away Diana’s ‘We’ll Be Right Back’ message; the accompanying music also ground to a halt. “Now, let’s see here….”

She looked out at the witches, went eenie meenie miney mo in her head, and pointed at a young girl. “Hey there! I’m Akko, what’s your name?”

“Stella!”

“Like a star? Your name’s so cute!”

Stella pouted. Her hair was dark brown and messy. “I’m not cute!”

“That’s okay, because it’s also cool and awesome!”

Stella’s face lit right up.

“Step right on up, Stella, because you’re gonna be our first volunteer!” Akko gestured with a big smile, and Stella got to her feet with all the bouncy energy of a ten year old. “All right, so what I’m gonna want you to do is….”

Akko pursed her lips. Actually, Stella was missing something kind of important. She whirled around, saw that Diana and Officer Widdecombe had come back around the gazebo, and zeroed in on the latter. “Hey! Can I borrow one of your wands? You’re not using em, right?”

Officer Widdecome blanched. “Well… erm….”

“It’s for a good cause and you know it!”

“... fine.”

“Thanks!” Akko reached in, grabbed one at random, and came up with a nice short wand—perfect for a new learner, especially a child with small hands. “All right, Stella!” She bounced back to the kid. “You’re gonna have to give this back, but for now, this can be your wand!”

She looked at it with, appropriately to her name, stars in her eyes. “Wow. But… how do I….”

“Wanna see how?” Akko bent down and picked up a leaf from the ground. It was fall, after all, so there wasn’t a shortage. She let it rest in her open palm, and crouched down to present it to Stella. “I’m gonna tell you how to lift up this leaf.”

Stella looked at the leaf and gulped.

“Yeah, it’s intimidating, isn’t it? But that’s okay.” Akko put on her best smile, and she had quite a lot of options to choose from, so that was saying something. “The spell is _Adcaelum_. No special wand movements or anything—just a word. Try saying that.”

“Ad… _adcaelum_.” Stella held the wand out toward the leaf. “ _Adcaelum_!” But nothing happened. Her lip trembled. “It didn’t….”

“Hey, listen!” Akko hopped a little closer, still crouched. “It’s gonna work. Can you believe that for me?” When Stella still looked unsure, Akko put a serious expression on her face. “I’m serious. That’s the first rule of magic: you have to believe. You have to believe that you have the power to change the world—and I believe that you do, Stella.”

She smiled again. “So I want you to tell me. Can you change the world?”

“I… can?”

“Come on! I want you to make me believe it too!”

“I can!” Stella put more force into it this time.

“Then say the spell with me, after I count to three! One, two, three—”

They called out the spell together. “ _Adcaelum!_ ”

A little wind tickled at Akko’s hand, so soft that it might not have been there at all. The leaf rose into the air, dancing on the phantom updraft. Stella watched it fly with her mouth in a huge, gasping O.

“You did it!” Akko stood and thrust her fists into the air. “You did awesome! And only in three tries—it took me, like, fifty tries to pull that off! You must be some kind of natural, Stella!”

Stella looked like she’d just gotten the world’s best Christmas present, and….

For a long time, Akko had been really confused about something. Specifically, ever since she’d learned that, like Clark Kent hiding the true identity of Superman, her mild-mannered teacher ‘Ursula Callistis’ had always been the one and only Chariot du Nord. After the dust had settled, and after Akko had really managed to start believing it, she’d had one overriding question: of all the things that Chariot could have become after going into hiding, why had she decided on being a teacher?

And now Akko had the answer, encoded inside a little girl’s smile. “Come on, everyone!” Akko yelled, looking at the group. “She did it! Clap for her, she’s earned it!”

It took a while, and she had to keep encouraging them, but her little group did eventually break out into full-fledged applause. Stella, for her part, was blushing heavily. “No, stop!” she said.

Akko laughed. “Okay, so I’m gonna get all of you some wands—at least, as many as I can manage—and you’re all gonna have the chance to start on this! Let’s get some learning done!”

* * *

Akko bounded back to Officer Widdecombe, grabbed a handful of wands from her holster (without asking), and started distributing them among the students. “Hey, I—” Officer Widdecombe started saying, but then she sighed. “Nevermind.”

Diana smiled at her. “You’re feeling it, aren’t you?”

“Feeling what? I mean—feeling what!” Officer Widdecombe straightened to attention.

Easily suppressing the desire to roll her eyes, Diana said, “Contagious enthusiasm. She does it to everyone.”

“Is that so!”

Yes. Yes, it was so.

Diana leaned her forearms on the gazebo railing, looking out over the training. The witches had mostly started by picking up leaves, although a few of them seemed unusually ambitions: they’d chosen pinecones instead. In only half a minute, leaves were soaring into the air.

And they were all hanging on Akko’s every word. Diana had to chuckle: how had Akko believed she wouldn’t be able to do it?

“Excuse me!” The voice broke Diana’s reverie, and she looked over to Officer Widdecombe, who continued, “I must report to Mayor Bloomington! And give him the rest of the wands I have collected! Can I trust you to keep this orderly!”

“I daresay you can.”

“Thank you! Do not try anything funny!” And with that, Officer Widdecombe jogged off the gazebo and into the street, in the direction of City Hall.

Diana allowed herself an even wider smile. This was what _winning_ looked like.

* * *

Mayor Bloomington stared at the paltry array of wands on his desk. “This is not enough,” he said, and tossed them over his shoulder to land, rattling, in what he’d called the ‘collecting basin’. Officer Widdecombe tried not to think about what it actually looked like.

“Sir!” she said instead.

“You’ve been out all morning, Officer. Are these the only wands you’ve collected?” He stared out at her from behind his desk, through thick round glasses.

He was a great man. He had to be, after all: he was the mayor. In certain respects, time spent behind a desk had made him even greater, and when he walked he did it with a cane, to support his grandeur and respectability and, if Officer Widdecombe was being honest, absolutely obese quantity of body fat. But he’d led the town through thick and thin. She could trust him.

So she saluted and said, “No, sir! I donated some of them!”

Bloomington’s eyes narrowed. “Elaborate.”

“Sir! There was a gathering in—”

“Inside voice, Janine. Sit down.”

Officer Widdecombe—as far as she was concerned, her first name was Officer while on duty, no matter what the mayor said—sighed and sat in the room’s other chair, rather plainer than the mayor’s. “Sir. I was approached by two witches, one of whom was Diana Cavendish, and they convinced me to allow certain restricted magical practice in Bloomington Park. Their logic, which I find agreeable, is that….”

The mayor sighed and rubbed his temple, hiding one of his eyes from view. Janine found herself trailing off. “By practicing magic… they’ll be better at using it… so there will be fewer… accidents.”

She looked up to avoid the gaze of his eye. This room was heavy—not just literally, but weighted with history and tradition. Portraits of the mayor’s (rather less flabby) forbears lined the walls, each one with his own mayoral sash, and the furniture all looked older than her great-grandfather. All dark colors, thick expensive carpets, and thick oak. Even the security guards on either side of the room looked heavy: two men in black suits, sunglasses, and with shaven heads, who looked like they could hit the weight limit on an elevator by themselves.

It all felt like insulation from the excitement she’d been swept up in outside. Those two witches had seemed to make such sense outside, but in here….

“Janine,” the mayor said, clasping his hands as if saying grace, “you’re breaking this old man’s heart. Did you know that?”

“Sir?”

“I gave you specific instructions. You were supposed to take every wand you could find and bring them here, and let me put them in that collection basin—” he pointed at the ‘basin’ “—so that no one could use them for ill. And what do you tell me?”

“Sir, they were practicing basic spells—”

“And you trust those witches to keep doing that?”

“I was overseeing them to make sure—”

“And who’s overseeing them now?” Bloomington leaned forward.

“Ah—”

Bloomington shook his head sadly. “My own most trusted officer. I can’t believe you would betray me like this. Taking the word of some teenage witches over mine.”

He sounded so hurt that Officer Widdecombe couldn’t help but stutter. “But, but sir—”

“And I especially can’t believe that you would betray your family.”

Janine fell silent.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten,” he said, “what happened to your sister when she misused magic. Don’t tell me you’ve been seduced into thinking that _any_ magical activity can be tolerated.” He pushed himself to his feet with some effort, looming over her as best as he could despite his height. “You wouldn’t do that, would you? You wouldn’t betray your family like that?”

Janine gulped.

Bloomington’s arms shook, and he sank back into his chair. “Go to the park,” he said, quite amicably. He was smiling again. “Force the gathering there to disperse. And bring their wands to me. So I can keep this town safe.”

“Sir!” Officer Widdecombe bolted to her feet.

“That will be all.” He flapped his hand again. “Dismissed, Officer.”

“Sir!” She saluted, turned on her heel, and marched out of the officer. It would be all right. After all, the mayor was a great man.

* * *

They’d almost all graduated to pinecones, and the air was thick with them. Mani’s kept flying too high, and Akko thanked her lucky stars that there didn’t seem to be any airplanes in the sky over the town. “You are all doing so great!” she yelled. “You’ve all learned so much already, and it’s only just noon!”

“No, not quite like that,” Diana said, standing near one of the older witches-in-training. “You’re overthinking a very basic spell. You don’t need to move your wand at all.”

And Akko was learning so much too. She’d learned that Stella’s mom hadn’t even been a witch, and she’d never even known anyone who was, so she didn’t have _any_ clue about magic—not like that was stopping her from trying her hardest, and her parents were _very_ excited to see how it would turn out. She’d learned about a sullen teenager Claire, who wouldn’t smile about magic unless Akko caught her ought of the corner of her eye. But that was fine: it still counted!

She’d learned a dozen names and a dozen stories. And now… “I don’t think I caught your name?” she said, trotting up to the last witch who was still on leaves.

“ _Adcaelum_ , dammit—” The woman, whose hair was flecked with gray—they’d really gotten all comers at the class!—jabbed her long thin wand at a leaf, over and over, to no effect. Then she looked up at Akko and said, “Oh, hello, Miss Kagari.”

“Please, call me Akko!” Akko beamed. “And you?”

“Karen.”

“Well, hi, Karen! What’s up?”

“Not this leaf.” Karen sighed—not a long drawn-out sigh, but a short businesslike one. She seemed like she wanted to be done with all this magic stuff and go home, and that set Akko’s face a-frowning. “I don’t… seem to have the knack. Maybe I’m too old for all these new tricks….”

“No, nononono, don’t be so down on yourself.” Akko winced: she’d heard this song and dance before. “Look, let’s… back up. What does magic mean to you? When you’re casting this spell—” Akko flicked her wand out, murmured, the words, and the leaf shot into the air before drifting gently back to earth “—what are you doing it _for_? What’s your big goal?”

“Well, I….”

“If you don’t know, then choose something!”

“Well…” Karen sighed, and this one was more drawn out. “I could probably have an easier time running my bakery if I could use magic. It’s a lot of work and I don’t have that many employees... er, pardon me? Did I say something strange?”

It took Akko a moment to realize her jaw had gotten a bit saggy. “Flores Flours?” she said. “On Church Road?”

Karen’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve been?”

“Only all the _time!_ ” Akko’s mouth was open again, but now in a smile. “Your everything bagels are _great_ , and your ice cream is _amazing!_ ”

“We… don’t actually make the ice cream ourselves—”

Akko stamped her foot. “Take the compliment! Now come on, are you gonna have the best darn bakery in Blytonbury or what?” She whipped her wand out again, knelt, and pointed it at the ground. Karen followed after a few seconds. “Say it with me after three. One, two three—”

“ _Adcaelum!_ ” Karen said. Akko didn’t say it. The leaf flew regardless.

“You were great!” Akko stood and gave her two thumbs up. “I knew you could do it!”

Karen grinned. God, Akko loved the smiles. She could live on those smiles. “Thanks,” Karen said. “I’m sorry I needed you to give me a confidence boost, miss Kagari… sorry, I mean Akko.”

Akko leaned in, glanced around, and said in a low voice: “Don’t tell anyone. The best witch I’ve ever seen has confidence issues sometimes. Lots of times. If it doesn’t make her any less great, then—whoa, whoa, sorry, gotta go!”

Because she’d just spied something from the corner of her eye: Stella had found a rock about as large as her fist and was pointing her wand at it. “Whoa there,” Akko said, hurrying over to her. “If you lose control of that it could fall and hurt you. Are you sure about this?”

Stella nodded hard.

“All right.” Akko pulled out her own wand, and held her other hand out too. “Then I’ll be here with you to make sure it’s okay. Give it a shot!”

Stella held out her hand that had the big gray stone in it. She took a deep breath. “ _Adcaelum. Adcaelum. Adcaelum!_ ”

The rock wibbled, and wobbled, and by degrees it rose into the air. “You’re doing it!” Akko said, still holding her wand out and keeping her eyes fixed on the stone. “You’re really doing it!”

It rose higher and higher, bringing it above Stella’s head—

“Excuse me!”

The yell broke Akko’s concentration, and she glanced behind herself. An instant later, she realized that if it was breaking her concentration, it would also be breaking Stella’s—

She gasped, and whipped around, and shoved out her hand. She caught the rock a centimeter from Stella’s head. A few seconds later, Stella looked up and blinked.

Akko felt her face go all angry. “Officer Widdecombe,” she said, standing and turning around, “you’ve gotta be more careful with—”

She stopped talking. Officer Widdecombe was holding her truncheon. In a few seconds, the ambient noise of witches practicing magic ground to a halt, followed shortly by the sound of pinecones falling like rain.

“Did I just see!” Officer Widdecombe said, her expression a heck of a lot less neutral than before. “That that young girl! Was nearly harmed! Because she was practicing magic!”

Akko glowered. “I caught it, and anyway Stella would have been fine if you hadn’t—”

“Attention, witches!” Officer Widdecombe hit her truncheon against the palm of her hand. “Under direct orders from the esteemed Mayor Bloomington! You are hereby ordered to surrender your misbegotten wands! And disperse from this illegal gathering!”

“What?” Akko stepped forward, her hand clenching into a fist. “Misbegotten? You’re the one who misbegave them to us!”

“I repeat!” Widdecombe put her hands around her mouth like a loudspeaker. “Surrender your wands! Disperse! Or face additional punitive action!”

Stella tapped Akko’s leg. “Does disperse mean leave?”

Akko nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

Stella’s face got all angry. “Hey!” She stepped forward and pointed her wand. “You can’t make me leave! I’ve got a magic wand! Watch this!” She pointed at a pinecone on the ground and yelled, “ _Adcaelum!_ ”

The pinecone shook and juddered as it ascended, as if riding an elderly elevator.

Officer Widdecombe smiled. “That’s very impressive!” Akko could hear the sarcasm even amid all that loud enthusiasm. “I have a magic wand too!”

She stepped forward and held out her truncheon. “It’s really good at making people do what I want!” And then her voice dropped to a low, dead-serious tone. “And I know how to _use_ mine. Stop this…” She gestured at the pinecone. “Uprising. Surrender your wand. Disperse.”

The pinecone shook one last time, and fell to the ground. Stella’s wand hand sank down, and Akko saw the fear in her eyes. Then she stared at Officer Widdecombe. The woman didn’t seem at all like the obviously-wrong-but-still-kind-of-reasonable person she’d managed to sway earlier. It was like someone else had gone inside her head and injected a whole load of _jerkhole_  into it—if she was willing to threaten a child who didn’t even know how to use a wand!

But Akko _did_ know how to use a wand—

“All right, everyone. You heard her.”

Akko’s eyes widened, and her rising wand stopped rising. She turned around and looked at Diana, because there was no way that Diana had just said that—

“Give those wands to me,” Diana said, “and I’ll give them back to Officer Widdecombe. Let’s do this in a nice, orderly fashion.” She collected the wands back from their temporary owners, as Akko’s lower jaw sagged, until finally Diana had reached Stella. “You too, Stella,” she said.

Stella didn’t let go. “Come on,” Diana said, crouching down. “You have to do what the nice police officer says. It’s not even your wand anyway. Please.” She reached out and held the wand, and then pulled a little, and finally Stella let go.

“There we are.” Diana stood, walked over to Officer Widdecombe, and handed over the wands. “Take good care of these,” she said.

Officer Widdecombe took them and shoved them in her holster. Then she held her hand out again. “And yours!”

“Oh, no.” Diana smiled. “Akko and I will be leaving presently. You can hardly object to us keeping our wands on the way out of town, can you?”

Officer Widdecombe stared her down for several long seconds, only to be met with Diana’s continued disarming smile. Then she turned on her heel and marched away. “Disperse!” she called again, over her shoulder. “This meeting is over!”

Before long, she was gone. There was a little rustling of wind on the fallen leaves, a little murmuring as the would-be witches disappeared, and that was all.

“Come on, Akko.” Diana walked up to her, a somber look in her eyes. “Let’s go home.”

Akko’s jaw was still open. She followed Diana numbly for a few steps, then forced herself to catch up. She held up her open palms, angled her eyebrows, leaned in toward Diana: Akko might not have known sign language, but it didn’t matter, because this was the universal gesture for, _What the hell was that?_

Diana rolled her eyes, breathing out. “Don’t look at me like that. We got a direct order from an officer of the law. There was nothing we could do.”

“There’s always something we can do! If we believe in ourselves!” Akko jabbed a thumb at her chest. “I do! Don’t you?”

“If I thought we could have convinced her otherwise, I promise I would have tried. But you saw her.” Diana sighed. “She would not have taken no for an answer. The mayor must have had words with her.”

“Then why don’t you have words with her back? What’s the point of having a reputation if you can’t use it to convince people?” Akko sucked in a breath. "Diana, aren't you with me?"

“ _Akko!_ ” The word was a shout. Akko went quiet. Diana continued walking for several seconds, her hands balled into fists, before her next words came out. “Sometimes, to preserve your good reputation, you have to choose your battles. You have to know when you can stand firm, and when you have to give in.”

Akko waited a few seconds before talking, too. “So it is a price.”

“No, it’s just—” Diana turned around and faced Akko. “Look. We helped anyway, didn’t we? We showed them how good magic can be. And a little of how to use it responsibly. Maybe that’s enough so there won’t be any more horrible accidents. Maybe that will make things better all on its own.”

“Maybe?” Eyes narrowed, chest hurting, hands balled into fists, Akko leaned forward.

“We’ve done the most we can do. Now things just have to… play out.” Diana sighed. She reached out for Akko’s fists, held them one by one, and uncurled them so they were open hands again. “I… I’m sorry it can’t be another way.”

She tried to tug at Akko, but Akko stayed firmly rooted to the spot. Diana frowned, or maybe pouted. She turned around. “I’ve got homework I must focus on. When you return to Luna Nova, you can find me in my room if you want me.”

She walked away, and Akko watched the back of her hair until she was out of sight.

Akko snorted through her nose, because her lips were closed and trembling.

“Excuse me? Akko?”

She whirled around. “What do you—” And then she cut herself off, because the _Excuse me?_ was coming from Mani, not the cop. She’d flinched back from Akko’s outburst, too. “Sorry,” Akko said, scratching her neck. “Confused you with someone else. What’s up?”

“Just… I was going to go back to the school. But are we still going to do tutoring next weekend?” Mani crossed her arms in front of her stomach, but rather than looking cross it was more like she was hugging herself. “That was really helpful. Even if you have to do it one-at-a-time again….”

“I guess so.” Akko slumped against a nearby building. “I guess it’s the most I can do, huh?”

“It doesn’t seem right.” Mani looked down. Her fists, with no obvious conscious effort, curled into tight fists. “It doesn’t seem _fair_.” The skin on her fingers turned red, they were clenching so hard.

Akko tilted her head, looking at this girl. This girl who sometimes seemed to have about of half of Lotte’s assertiveness, and other times seemed to be so filled with anger…. “Can I ask you something?” Akko said. “You’re really into... 'fairness'. How’d that happen?”

“What?” In her distraction, Mani’s hands unclenched somewhat. She looked up at Akko. “Why do you need to know?”

“I don’t need to! It’s just….” Akko threw her hands up. “I feel like once I know what someone’s passionate about, and why they're passionate about it… I can understand them. I can get through to them. Lotte, Sucy, Diana….” She smiled. “I bet I could even convince Officer Widdershins if I knew what her deal was. So… what happened with you, Mani? What made you like this?”

Mani frowned. “I don’t… what are you asking for? Some sort of… Batman, comic book backstory? A gunman in an alley?” She shrugged. “It’s just… I live in a very nice house at home.”

Akko leaned forward a bit. Mani seemed to be going somewhere with this: no need to interrupt. Patience is a virtue, fourth Word. Would she just keep _talking already—_

“A really very nice house,” Mani said. “And it’s tall too. And it’s tall enough that I can go up to the highest floor, and look out on Kairouan, and… see slums. People living in slums. A mile, maybe two, from my front door. And now?”

Mani pointed down the street, off into the distance—somewhat above the horizon. “Now I live in a castle,” she said, and Akko realized she was pointing at Luna Nova even if it wasn’t in sight. “A big fancy castle where I can learn all the magic I want. And here, right here, are people who don’t get to learn anything, and it’s. Not. Fair.”

She sucked a hissing breath through her clenched teeth. Then she winced, and looked around cautiously, and pulled a wand from somewhere hidden under her cloak. “Ugh. I think being agitated makes it build up faster.”

Akko frowned and pushed herself off the wall. “You kept that?”

“I guess Diana didn’t count how many wands she was getting. I know, I’m not supposed to, but I need it.” She pulled out her antimagic sink. “Otherwise….”

“You blow up, yeah.”

“Yes. _Pharus_.”

“You blow up.”

“ _Pharus_. I… think I said yes already.”

“You blow up,” Akko said, stepping forward dumbly, “if you don’t use _magic_.” Then she smashed her palm into her forehead. “I can’t believe this! Why am I so dumb, I should have realized this like a million years ago! Dumbity dumb dumb Akko!”

“Wha—”

Akko surged forward and grabbed Mani’s shoulders roughly. “She didn’t _misuse_ magic! She didn’t use magic at all! She’s like you!”

“Wheh—”

“The girl! The girl who got blown up just before this dumb anti magic law started!” Akko shook Mani. “We’ve all been acting like she made a mistake, this whole stupid time! Like she did something wrong, like it was her fault for being bad at magic! But she’s like you!”

Mani’s mouth opened. “She… she was having magic buildup?”

“I’m dead sure of it!” Akko released Mani’s shoulder and stomped away: with all this indignation, she had to vent it somehow or she would explode, so she stomped and paced. “And we’ve been acting like, oh, well it’s a dumb law, but at least it’ll keep people safe, but it won’t! It couldn’t make them less safe if it tried!”

She stomped again, and was still. “You know what that means, right?”

“I kind of hope not.”

“What it means is….” She whirled around and threw her hand down in front of Mani. “We can’t stop now. Not even close. Are you with me?”

* * *

“You know,” Char said, “I wasn’t sold on this whole shopping day thing? But this is a really nice camera.” She held it up to the thrift shop’s light. “I could take some sweet pictures with this.”

“Don’t you have a smartphone?” Tiff said, only looking at Char in her peripheral vision. Her attention was focused on a vintage broom cleaning kit. A little present, and apology, for her current favorite broom, which was currently held on her back by a high-quality broom strap. “I’m just thinking you could take photos on that.”

“Oh. You’re right.” Char hmmed, and put the camera back. “Guess I’ll just be lazy and do the same old thing I always do.”

“No, I’m just curious—”

“Why would I ever step outside my box, right?”

“I just mean, I’m surprised, that’s all. Not judging. Just surprised. Buy it if you want.”

“Meh.” Char shrugged and leaned against a shelf, one which was not itself against a wall. Tiff rushed over. “It’s bloody freakin’ expensive anyway.”

“I’ll buy you the goshdarned camera,” Tiff said, firmly getting Char off the shelf before she knocked it over. “And how is it too expensive? This is a thrift store!”

“Sign on the door says _Antique_.”

“Yeah, like vintage. What’s the difference?”

Char let out a snort, still leaning on Tiff. “Mate, you have unusual ideas on how much money _money_ is.”

“Whoa, coming through!” yelled a voice from outside.

For goodness’ sake, it was like being in a horror film. Tiff found herself jumping at the sound of Akko’s voice. She was concerned she might get some sort of mental condition at this rate.

She looked outside, dreading whatever shenanigans she might come up with, and… saw Akko dog-walking. For dozens of small weiner dogs. Tiffany’s personal Akko-sense, or perhaps an Akko-nonsense-sense, was blaring at Defcon 1 regardless: somehow this was suspect, and she was gonna find out why.

“No,” Char said, holding out an arm as Tiff started marching.

Tiff pouted until her lip touched her nose. “But she’s clearly—”

“No.” Char rolled her eyes. “Or she really will think you’re stalking her.”

“But—” Tiff blinked. “Hang on, why is Mani helping her?”

“Wait, what?” Char glanced out the window.

Tiff ducked under Char’s arm and walked outside, jingling the door’s bell as she went, and called out, “Mani!”

Mani jumped as her name was called. She had been walking somewhat behind Akko, and now that she was stopped, Akko was gaining distance. “Hi, Tiff!” she said, sweating. “How’s shopping?”

“Mani, you’re sweating. What’s Akko doing?”

“What? That would be ridiculous, it’s so cool out!” Mani laughed and wiped her forehead. “We’re doing fine! The teaching magic thing didn’t quite work, so now we’re abandoning that and… well, you can see….”

She gestured vaguely. “Walking dogs,” Char finished, as she walked up behind Tiff.

“Yes! To… help the community.”

Char frowned. “Whose dogs?”

“You know… _people’s_ ….”

Tiff squinted. Akko’s dogs were all wiener dogs. That was weird—they couldn't be _that_ common, could they? But more than that, as she looked at them, she was fairly sure she couldn’t actually make out any differences between the dogs. Or how they walked.

“Mani,” Tiff said. “Did Akko take a bunch of the school’s spare wands, use _Metamorphie faciesse_ on them, and smuggle them into town as dogs?”

“What?” Mani laughed in a strained way. “That would be crazy!”

“Yes, yes it would. Did she do it?”

“I….” Mani glanced around, as if seeking an exit sign during a fire, and gasped. “I need to catch up with her! Be back later!”

She ran off. “Wait,” Tiff said, and then sighed. “Oh, this is so not worth my time.”

“You know, she’s right.” Char smiled and clapped Tiff on the back. “That does sound crazy.”

Tiff growled.

* * *

From nowhere that Tiffany could see, a dark haired girl with an armcast watched Akko continue down the street.

* * *

“This is bad,” Mani said, and Akko wished she would stop because she’d said it about a dozen times now. “This is going to go very badly.”

“Okay, everyone,” Akko said, “you’re probably wondering why I had you come to this… beautiful, scenic, meeting location.”

They were under a bridge. It was a nice old bridge, and the brook it crossed made a pleasant burbling sound as it went, but still—hiding under a bridge. The witches on the other side of the brook—at least, the witches who had come, which was about half of the amount from earlier—were divided between those looking uneasily at Akko, and those looking uneasily at the mud their shoes were getting ruined in.

Akko opened her mouth to start explaining, and then Stella—who had been the first witch she’d found, and the easiest to convince—raised her hand. “Miss Akko, where’s Miss Diana?”

“Oh! She went back to school.”

“Why isn’t she here? Are you two fighting?”

“We’re disagreeing, which is different—”

“You’re _fighting?_ ”

“We’re not—”

“Girlfriends shouldn’t fight!”

Stella looked positively heartbroken. Akko winced. “Look. We each have important things we’ve gotta do. She’s gotta do… homework, and I’ve gotta tell you all something really important.”

Claire piped up. “What, did someone lose their phone at magic practice?” She clearly hadn’t: she was looking at it as she spoke.

“No, I called you here because—”

“I mean, I did find this,” said one of the witches, holding up an old flip-phone. Another witch gasped and snatched it.

“I think you all need to keep practicing magic!” Akko blurted out. “No matter _what_ the law says!”

Silence followed. Mind, if the act of staring made noise, Akko wouldn’t have been able to hear herself think over the ten stares she was getting now. As it was, she was still having a little trouble marshaling her followup.

“I know it sounds a little crazy when I say that,” she said. “But—”

About half of the witches turned around and started walking.

“Wait!” she yelled. They kept walking. “Hear me out!”

“Um,” Claire said, walking away and still not looking up from her phone. “Like, I don’t want to get, like, arrested? So….”

“Do you want to _explode?_ ” Akko yelled.

That stopped them. Claire even looked up.

Akko pointed at Mani, who hadn’t moved if you didn’t count trembling. “Mani, tell them what happens if you don’t use magic.”

“Um….”

“Please tell them? I know it’s personal, but _please_.”

“I… blow myself up.”

“Exactly.” Akko took a breath. “And tell them what happens if you _do_ use magic without being _really really careful_.”

“I blow other things up.” Mani looked like she wanted to disappear into her hood-thingy. Hijab, if Akko remembered correctly.

“Yeah. Because Mani’s got this thing where she’s got too much magic in her.” Akko stepped toward the witches who had been about to leave. “It’s what happened to that witch who got blown up and got this whole dumb law started. It wasn’t that she _misused_ magic, it wasn’t her fault at _all_ —but it could happen to any of _you_.”

She pointed a finger, sweeping it along so it pointed at the entire crowd. “Look. Magic is the most wonderful thing in the world, and it’s beautiful and wonderful, and I _wish_ that was the only reason you all should learn about it… but it’s not. You’ve got to be able to protect yourselves. So….” She held out an open hand. "Are you with me?”

What followed was the physical version of an ellipsis. A pause, during which Akko wasn’t even thinking as the witches considered what they’d do. Which was good, because if she _was_ thinking, she’d probably be panicking.

“This… blowing up,” one of the witches finally said. It was Karen the baker. “Does it happen to every witch?”

“Er….” Akko’s outstretched hand sagged. “No?”

“Then….” Karen winced. “Miss Kagari, I know you’re some high-flying celebrity, but… I have a job. We all have lives. I can’t be getting arrested for this.” She backed up. “I’m sorry, I know you mean well, but….”

Akko stared at the ground. In her peripheral vision, the rest of the witches started moving away.

“Akko?” Mani said.

“Do you think I don’t have a life?” Akko said, quietly but with a voice that carried.

And then, as they turned to look at her, and because she couldn’t think of anything else to do—she twitched her wand and turned into a peacock.

They gasped, but she wasn’t done. She jumped up and swooped in a loop-de-loop under the bridge, before changing again into a horse that cantered around in a circle—then a snorting rhino, a chomping shark, a trumpeting elephant.

Another puff of smoke, and she was herself again, and she had their attention. But it wouldn’t work twice. One last try.

“I have a life too, you know!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got a life and, yes, Stella, I’ve got a girlfriend too, and I’ve got school and classes and stuff and they wouldn’t like it if I got arrested—you think I’m not risking anything with this? But here’s the thing!” She pumped her elbows down, hands clenched in fists. “Magic is the most amazing thing in the _world_ , and if I had to give it up to keep my life, then _screw_ my life!”

She rushed forward and took Karen by the shoulders. “Karen! You could run your bakery better if you were allowed to use magic! Think how much work you’d save! And Stella!” She crouched down to the girl’s height. “Don’t you think your parents would love it if you showed them all the magic you could do? And I know you like magic, Claire,” she added, looking at the girl who still had her phone out, “I saw you smiling! Don't try to pretend you didn't!”

Akko held out her hands. “Magic could make your lives _so much better_ in an  _infinity_  of ways. And you’re just gonna let this town’s _single_ policewoman and some _stupid_ law keep you scared? I _know_ it’s risky! But I promise, I _won’t_ let her arrest you, and you have the _world_ to gain.”

She took a deep breath. “So. One last time. _Are you with me?_ ”

_Now_ she was panicking—all in her head, thankfully; she was managing to keep her cool outside it. But inside, she was running through all the million scenarios in which this didn’t work out: the one where they laughed at her, the one where they walked away without a word, the one where they ratted her out to Officer Widdecombe—

Stella stepped forward. “Okay.”

Claire looked down at her, eyes wide. “Kid?”

“She’s the one who saved the world,” Stella said, fists on her hips as she looked back up. “If she’s not gonna let me get in trouble, then it’s fine.”

The other witches didn’t seem quite as steadfastly certain of this logic: Akko saw the shifting of feet, the grimaces. But after several seconds of this, Karen stepped forward too. “What?” Claire said. “You’re the one who just said—”

“Not having to work so hard at the bakery sounds pretty good,” Karen murmured. “And… I don’t want anyone telling me how to run _my_ business.” She looked up. “I’m with you.”

Claire groaned. “We’re all gonna have to share one big cell…. Uuuuuuuugh.” She shoved her phone in her pocket. “Fine. With you.”

And the other witches stepped forward too, one by one. “I’m with you,” one said, and then another, over and over again. Akko’s heart swelled, as if she were the Grinch finding out the true meaning of Christmas (Amanda had showed her an old cartoon once).

“Thank you!” she yelled. She jumped up and landed with splash in the brook, arms in the air. “I’m not gonna let you down! I promise it’s not just about lifting leaves or rocks, or even venting magic to stay safe. It’s about being who you really are at witches!”

She beamed and pulled out her wand, letting it sparkle with a thought. “It’s about finding the best part of you and letting it shine! It’s about finding your—”

She stopped, because her wand was shining more than she’d intended. It shone, in fact, with seven points of light.

_It’s about finding your destiny._

“Hey,” she said, her brain feeling a little disconnected from her mouth. It felt like she’d been struck with lightning, and the thunder was rocking her to the soul. “Do you girls wanna see something cool?”

They seemed generally okay with the idea, although no one nodded or anything. Then again, Akko barely had any idea what she was doing. She was acting without thinking, and not in the way people usually accused her of, either.

“Come over here,” she said, beckoning them toward the bridge. The arch on its underside went vertical and became a wall near the water level, and she trained her attention on that wall as everyone approached.

“Er, Miss Kagari?” Karen said. “Why’s your wand doing that?”

She smiled, and it felt like something she was doing on purpose: like she was finally processing the enormity of what this meant. “It’s ‘cuz I know what I’ve got to do. And the first step of that is, I’ve got to go get someone very important. So watch this!”

She raised her wand in the pose she’d gotten to know so well. “ _Noctu orfei!_ ”

The shining brightened. “ _Aude fraetor!_ ”

“She’s doing the thing!” Stella pointed frantically, ecstatically, as Akko’s wand transformed into a magnificent bow. "The bow thing!" Everyone else was a bit more busy backing away in awe.

“ _Shiny…_ ” Akko yelled. “ _Arc!_ ”

She released. The arrow of light struck the wall opposite, and burst in a brilliant cascade of green. She heard gasps, and saw people shielding their eyes, but she just watched with a smile on her face that felt seared on.

The rushing, swirling light resolved itself into an oval, large enough for a girl her size to enter. “Be right back!” she said, and jumped in.

* * *

Diana was finding it hard to concentrate. Yes, she had a rather complicated essay on the history and development of lunar runes as a writing system, due in three days. And yes, she had a number of circuit diagrams to complete for Modern Magic, which were proving rather more difficult than that.

But Akko hadn’t come back. And if Akko hadn’t come back, _id est_ if Akko was still in town… the conclusions wrote themselves.

She didn’t snort, or groan, and when she stood it wasn’t with any particular vehemence. But she was, perhaps, quicker than usual as she gathered her jacket, her wand, her broom, and then reached for her small moneypurse—

Light blasted through the air. Diana held her arm up across her face as papers, even whole books, flew across the room from what seemed like… some sort of green, spiraling oval.

Diana shook herself. She didn’t deal in ‘some sort of’. That was a leyline. And that meant exactly one thing. “Akko?” she said, calling out a little louder than usual, over the wind that still streamed from the portal.

An indistinct figure came into view, as if rising from deep water, until Akko burst from the leyline. “Diana!” she called. For a moment, she was holding a magnificent bow in her right hand: then it transfigured itself back into her wand.

“Akko?” she said, feeling her eyes bulge. “Is that the….”

Akko jumped forward. “I know you think we did our best! I know you think it’s time to stop trying to help those witches in Blytonbury!”

“Akko, that’s—”

“But come on!” Akko swished her wand with angry glee. “When was the last time we let impossibility stop us? I know we can help them, and I think you know why too!”

She raised her wand yet higher, and at last gave Diana enough room to speak. “The Shiny Rod? But—it’s gone.” She stepped forward, glancing at Akko’s wand. “You surrendered it to the heavens after reviving magic—”

She stopped herself. “Except… no, you used Shiny Arc to get to the opening ceremony again. I never took the chance to ask you how, but—”

“Exactly!” Akko pumped her fist, then bounced forward and took Diana by the shoulders. “It was the exact same feeling then as when I revived the Word for the first time, and it’s exactly what I’m feeling now! That—that will, that drive to show everyone just how amazing magic really is! Don’t you feel it too? Don’t you know what it means?”

“It means—” Diana gasped. “It’s… it’s still your destiny. To bring back magic—there’s still more to do.”

“Because magic isn’t back!” Akko’s mouth went to a hard line, and her eyes blazed. “Not until magic’s back for _everyone_. But you’re wrong about one thing.”

She bounded one step back and let go of Diana’s shoulders—only to reach out her hand. “It’s not _my_ destiny. It’s ours, Diana.” How quickly she could change expression—where her eyes had blazed angry a moment before, now they shone bright enough that Diana could see a future in them. “You’re on the same road I am—always have been, always will be.”

She reached out further. “Come on!”

But she didn’t need to stretch herself. Diana was laughing, already stepping forward. She grabbed Akko’s hand, and let Akko’s grasp and laugh pull her close. “Thank you,” Diana said.

“Of course.”

Diana stepped in even closer, until her forehead was against Akko’s, and she felt Akko’s heat on hers. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them to see Akko, smiling so hard she looked like she was about to cry. “Together?” Diana said.

“Forever.”

Diana pulled away, but still held Akko’s hand. The portal was still open. They walked through.

* * *

“Thanks for the light show!”

Handcuffs clicked around Akko’s wrist as soon as she exited the portal.

“Atsuko ‘Akko’ Kagari!” said the loud, triumphant voice of Officer Widdecombe. “You are under arrest! For violating—”

Click. Before Akko could respond more than slack-jawed astonishment, Widdecombe had put her arms behind her back and locked the other handcuffs on. “—the Emergency Magic Restriction Act!” she continued, and yanked Akko’s wand from her hand, and then moved left. 

“Now wait just a—” Diana started, and then Officer Widdecombe had her in handcuffs too, and had taken her wand. “Hey!”

“Diana Cavendish! You are under arrest for contravention of the same act! Along with Imani bint Abdallah al Kairouani!”

Akko glanced to her right and saw Mani, slumped on the ground, arms behind her back. Quivering. Akko, for her part, felt like screaming. She and Diana, two supposed great witches (or at least one great witch—Diana—and one pretty okay witch), had just been detained in a matter of seconds. All the bright feelings inside Akko were vanishing like a bunch of bulbs burning out.

But a little note in her head told her that Officer Widdecombe seemed to be screaming louder than usual, and wasn’t looking just at her. She looked to her left, and saw a few of the witches she’d been trying to teach—Claire, Stella—peeking out from behind some trees.

“You think this is helping anyone?” Akko yelled. “You think your stupid—”

“Understand this!” Officer Widdecombe bellowed, turning to face the half-hidden witches directly. Her holster was filled with all the wands Akko had collected, for those witches! “This is what happens when you—”

“Your stupid Restriction law isn’t helping anyone!” Akko matched her, decibel for decibel. She lunged at the officer, but her foot caught on a rock, so she went sprawling into the brook. Mud splashed on her face and on her bared teeth. She spat it out and glared up.

“—when you violate the rule of law!” But Officer Widdecombe seemed determined to win the war of volume. “Don’t let me see you at it again!” Widdecombe yelled.

Claire raised a middle finger. Stella gasped.

Officer Widdecombe growled and stomped forward. Akko shoved herself forward like an inchworm and grabbed Officer Widdecombe’s boot in her teeth, and when she tried to run at Claire, she lost her balance and faceplanted just like Akko had. Akko spat out the boot and yelled, “Go!”

Now Claire and Stella ran. Rustling in the bushes around them suggested that other witches, who must have been staying around to watch, were running too.

By the time Officer Widdecombe stood up, none of the witches were anywhere to be seen. She rubbed down the front of her uniform, as if that would stop it from being soaked, and then looked around at Akko with eyes of fury. “That will not. Look good. On your record.”

Akko grinned up at her, like an enraged predator.

Officer Widdecombe stood a little straighter and started reciting: “You do not have to say anything! But it may harm your defence! If you do not mention when questioned! Something which you later rely on in court! Anything you do say may be given in evidence!...”


	15. Are You With Me? (3)

“My family is going to kill me,” Mani said, head clutched in her hands as if she were worried it would come off her neck. The handcuffs were off, not that it mattered.

Akko had never been in a jail cell. In some ways, it was neat, and kind of cool with how dingy it was in here—a real old fashioned dungeon kind of cell, with bars and stone and even a bit of hay. In _most_ ways, she was enraged beyond the capacity for rational thought. “Let us out!” she bellowed. “Your stupid law is gonna get someone killed!”

“They’re going to do it in turns,” Mani said.

“Akko, they’re not listening.” Diana rested her head against the hard stone, sitting on the hard bench with Mani. Her eyes were closed. “Oh, a Cavendish has just been arrested. Oh, this is… new.”

“First my brother’s gonna kill me,” Mani said.

“You can’t keep us in here forever!”

“Then my father’s gonna kill me.”

“There’s never been a Cavendish in jail.”

“Then my mother. Then my uncles.”

“Are you even listening to me? Listen to me!”

“Then my aunts. Then my _grandfather_.”

“Well, maybe in the thirteenth century. If being a prisoner of war counts. I don’t think it does.”

“And my _grandmother’s_ going to kill me most of all!”

“LISTEN TO ME!” Akko bellowed, and smashed her face between the bars. It hurt, it hurt a lot, but her spirit was stronger.

Okay, not that much stronger. “Ow ow ow,” she said, and then she had to yank her face out, and she said, “Ow!” She winced her way back to the bench, plopping herself down between Diana and Mani. “I'm really sorry this happened, girls. You know, when I decided I was going to directly break the town law, I wasn’t thinking about getting arrested.”

Mani squinted up at her, mouth vaguely open. Akko sighed. “Yes, it sounds stupid when I say it like that.”

“It sounds stupid no matter how you say it!” Mani bolted up. “I didn’t sign up for this!”

“You… kinda did?”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“But—but what about—” Akko held out her hands. “What about being fair? What about any of that?”

“I know, I _know_ that’s what I said, but—”

“Bail’s here!”

Akko bolted to her feet. There was a spiral stairwell visible through the cell bars, and light came down the stairwell, and in the light she saw a descending silhouette. Judging by how it was flat on top, like a policewoman’s cap, that had to be Widdecombe. It was certainly her voice. “Inmate! You are free to go, pending further trial!”

Akko felt her face light up with something other than physical pain. And then it fell a second later, as she noticed the singular. Inmate. So either her or Diana wasn’t getting out….

“Mani, come on! Get out of there, this is ridiculous!”

And then Akko’s face fell even further. That was Tiff’s voice, and Tiff’s silhouette coming down behind Officer Widdecombe’s. And the slouching silhouette behind her was probably Char.

A few seconds later, Tiff’s face came into view. She looked as incredibly unimpressed as her voice had sounded. Akko forced on a smile anyway. “Tiff! Buddy!”

“You had better not be about to ask whether I’m paying your bail.”

Okay, the smile wasn’t working. How about an exaggerated pout? “But we’re pals! Chums! We could even have a secret handshake—we don’t, sure, but we could!”

“You got Mani thrown in jail!” Tiff took a breath to recollect herself. “So no! No, I am not spending one _penny_ bailing you out! You made your bed, now lie in it.”

Then she glanced over at Diana. “And you.” Akko glanced at Diana, who still had her eyes closed and head leaned against the wall. She was either meditating or catatonic, and Akko couldn’t tell. “I’d expect this sort of craziness from Akko. But you?” Tiff frowned. Diana didn’t react at all.

“Step away from the bars!” Officer Widdecombe had been rummaging in a drawer a few feet away from the cell. Now she returned with an old-fashioned key in one hand, and her truncheon held at the ready in the other. Akko growled, but stepped back as she unlocked the cell.

As soon as it was open, Mani scurried, and Officer Widdecombe slammed the door behind her. “Thank you!” Mani said, rushing in front of Tiff and embracing her.

“Of course. What are friends for?” Tiff awkwardly patted her on the back, but adopted a sterner tone as she continued, “Just don’t go and get arrested again.”

“I’m not going to do that.” Mani displayed a stressed little grin. “My family’s still going to kill me before I get the chance, you see.”

“You may pick your wands up at City Hall!” Officer Widdecombe yelled.

“Right.” Tiff looked up  “Now you two think about what you’ve done,” she said. Akko had to roll her eyes at that. Then Tiff turned to go, leading Mani back up the stairs.

Char stayed for a moment. She wore an old-fashioned camera around her neck, and unusually, she didn’t have anything to lean on: instead, she was standing up straight. She looked glum. “Sorry,” she said, shrugging. “Out of cash.”

Akko sighed. “Thanks anyway.”

Char turned to leave. Officer Widdecombe followed her out.

Akko and Diana were alone.

* * *

“This is the last of them, sir!” Officer Widdecombe said, taking her bundle of wands and dropping them on Mayor Bloomington’s desk.

“Ah ah ah,” he said, leaning forward with a smile. “Into the collecting basin, if you don’t mind.”

Were she not on duty, she might have sighed, but it was a reasonable enough request. She walked over and placed them in the… it took some effort to keep calling it a collecting basin instead of what it really was.

“Thank you,” he said, wiggling somewhat in his seat.

“May I sit down!”

“Only if you stop shouting.”

That was quite okay with Officer Widdecombe. As she sat down, she felt the pressure come off her abused feet, and felt their protests in turn. The muscles and joints all up and down her leg joined in common cause, and she suppressed the urge to groan.

“But not for too long,” he added. “In fact, I’m going to want you to—”

“Sir, I actually have a request.”

Mayor Bloomington frowned. “What sort of request?”

“I…” She shook herself. “Sir! Permission to visit my idiot little sister in the hospital!”

“Hmm.” Mayor Bloomington steepled his fingers. “Denied. We need you far too much on the streets.”

“About that.” She glanced to either side. “Your security guards.”

The two huge men didn’t seem to have moved since the last time Officer Widdecombe had arrived. It was truly remarkable—as if they had been 3D printed from a mold named ‘generic menacing large man’, and set in a nondescript pose with their hands held in front of them, and just left there.

“Might I be allowed to deputize them for a short period of time? So I can visit my sister while they patrol? Or at least….” Her stomach rumbled mightily, and she winced despite herself. “I could get a bagel? Or even get some paperwork done? Or a _change of clothes._ ” She gestured down at her uniform, which had half-dried in an uncomfortable way, so that it chafed. “I haven’t had any time for—”

Mayor Bloomington laughed in a way that, if not for context, Officer Widdecombe would have called jolly. “Oh, but they’re needed here too. I have private work to do,” he explained, smiling widely. “Involving these wands. It’s vitally important that I am not interrupted during that work, so they will serve to enforce that. So, no, they must stay here.”

His smile widened even further. “Now off you go, Officer Widdecombe. You’ve got important work out there, too! Keep bringing in wands!”

“Yes sir,” Janine said, automatically. She stood, saluted, and left, shutting the door behind herself. And then stood outside the door. Keep bringing in wands, he’d said. Not Keep the town safe, not Stop them from using magic, but….

She shook herself, and was on her way. It was surely nothing, and her fatigue had to be causing her to fixate on odd things. After all, Mayor Bloomington was a great man.

Then a voice interrupted her train of thought. “Excuse me,” the voice said, “how do I post bail?”

* * *

It had been about ten minutes. Akko was, of course, going insane.

“I bet,” she said, thinking out loud, “if I took some of this hay, and I jimmied it into the lock, I could—” She shoved her arm through the bars, and reached for the lock, hay already in hand, teeth gritted, grunting noisily.“ _Pick_ —our _way_ — _outta here!_ Gah—frickin—come _on_ , you—” She twisted and turned, but—

“Don’t.”

Akko looked round, arm contorted. Diana hadn’t spoke for ten minutes, and this was the word she chose to come back on? “What do you mean, don’t?” Akko stepped toward her. “You want me to do nothing? Are you giving up again?”

Diana opened her eye. Her gaze was steel. Akko gulped.

“I am not giving up,” Diana said. “I am not in the general vicinity of giving up, and I urge you _not_ —” she emphasized the T a little more than necessary: _nott-tuh_ “—to get the wrong impression.” She sighed. “But no, you can’t pick iron locks with hay. Sit with me.”

Akko pulled her arm out and harrumphed onto the bench. Diana closed her eyes again. “So now what,” Akko said. “If we’re not giving up, and we’re not doing anything….”

“We’re waiting.” Diana sucked in a breath through her nose, out through her mouth.

“For what?”

“Breathe. We’ll know when we find it. Or when it finds us.” Another deep breath from Diana, which Akko tried to imitate. “Sometimes, the best thing you can do is wait.”

So Akko took deep breaths, and budged up against Diana, and waited. Patience was a virtue, after all. Fourth Word. She tried not to grit her teeth.

“Hey,” she said. At least a minute later, to her credit. “Hey, Diana?”

“Yes, Akko?”

Akko sidled a little closer on the bench, feeling Diana’s body heat on her own. “Do you remember our first kiss?”

Diana frowned, and cracked an eyelid open.

“It was kind of dimly lit… we were sitting on a bench a lot like this one….”

“Akko,” Diana said, opening her other eye and turning to face her, “we haven’t yet had our first—”

“In a jail cell,” Akko said, leaning closer, “a _lot_ like this one….” And she leaned closer still, and puckered up—

And then faceplanted onto the bench as Diana stood abruptly. “ _No_ , Akko! Level Three! Do I have to keep reminding you,” she said, throwing out a hand, “what Level Three means?”

Akko shoved herself upright, removing her face from the bench. “It means when other people are around! It’s just us right now! That’s Level One!”

“Level Three means _all_ public places! I’m not some sort of—some sort of _exhibitionist_ , Akko!” Diana groaned loudly. “Why can’t you respect that?”

“Because what kind of girlfriends haven’t even _kissed_ yet, Diana? How is that ‘proper’?” Akko raised her hands for air quotes. “How does that make sense?”

Diana turned away, arms crossed. “I can’t believe we’re having this discussion while wrongfully imprisoned. Do you _really_ believe this is the time?”

“Come on, what _else_ are we doing? Just _waiting?_ ” Akko stood too. “You know how I feel, I know how _you_ feel, so what are we _waiting_ for?”

Diana didn’t reply, and with how she was looking away, Akko didn’t even know if she’d reacted facially. “Diana,” Akko said, way quieter, “what _are_ we waiting for? Is it… am I doing something wrong? Is it something to do with me?”

It took a few seconds longer before Diana finally sighed. “Of course it’s to do with you, Akko.”

Akko flinched back, sucking in breath. It was like being slapped in the face.

“No, not—oh, _Beatrice_ , I said that horribly.” Diana turned around. “It’s because… because you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever been blessed enough to meet. And the times when we’re together— _physically_ together—” she reached out, picked up Akko’s hand, and held it “—are the times I want to remember as the best of my life. You’re the most exceptional person, Akko, and I never want to think of you as ordinary.”

“So so it’s not because you’re….” Akko’s lip trembled a bit.

“Atsuko Kagari.” Diana sounded like a scolding teacher, but she was smiling, at least in Akko’s peripheral vision—Akko still stared toward the floor. “You had better not be about to say, ‘embarrassed of you’.”

Akko sighed. “But….” She looked up. “I want you _all_ the time. Not just when other people aren’t around. And I _really_ wanna have that first kiss.” She smiled hopefully.

Diana was smiling too, but not _hopefully_ , exactly. “And when we do, I want to make it _perfect_. A perfect romantic memory. This….” She sat down on the bench again, still holding Akko’s hand. “This is not the time or place.”

“I dunno…” Akko winked. “Two brave young women, wrongfully imprisoned for going against the _man_? That’s pretty romantic. Like Zorro or something. That guy got arrested a bunch, right?”

Diana snorted. “Or, to reframe: two witches in a cell that probably hasn’t seen a mop since the turn of the _twentieth_ century.” She sniffed and made a disgusted face, but then closed her eyes and became a picture of calm.

“All right, _fiiiiiiiiine_.” Akko sighed. “Since no one’s here, can we at _least_ stay at Level Two?” She gave Diana’s hand a little squeeze.

Diana didn’t respond with words, but she gave a little squeeze back.

* * *

As it turned out, Akko didn’t even wait too horribly long after that. The familiar, strident voice came only a few minutes later. “Inmates! Your bail is here!”

Akko couldn’t help but notice that Officer Widdecombe sounded just as loud and energetic as before, the tone of triumph was missing. And that made Akko smile. “You were right!” she said, turning to Diana beside her.

“I was,” Diana said, not opening her eyes.

“Who do you think bailed us out?”

“I choose not to speculate on such things without evidence.” A few seconds passed. “But it was probably Lotte.”

“That makes sense, but she wasn’t in town today….” Akko pushed herself up, walking closer to the bars, trying to see the silhouette. “How would she know we were here?”

Diana hmmed. “Barbara?”

Officer Widdecombe’s silhouette approached fast, followed by Officer Widdecombe herself. She retrieved the keys, unlocked the door, and stepped back with a glower on her face. However, the other silhouette—or silhouettes, who knew at this point—was taking its sweet time. “Any moment you like!” Officer Widdecombe yelled, turning to face the stairs.

Akko glowered at her in turn. “Don’t you have some grade schoolers to threaten somewhere?”

Officer Widdecombe’s hand went for her baton. Akko stood her ground and kept eye contact; if insulting stupid dumb cops was illegal, she’d happily stay in the clink. Finally, with a little snarl, Officer Widdecombe said, “Your wands are at City Hall. You may _not_ retrieve them before your trial, due to the nature of your offenses.” And she _said_ it, too, instead of shouting. She turned around and jogged up the stairs.

Akko walked out the open door, stretching and smiling—not like she hadn’t had room to stretch inside the cell, but it still felt different. Diana joined her a few seconds later, but they didn’t head out; they kept waiting for the silhouette that was, only now, coming into view. And it didn’t look like anyone Akko knew, either.

A voice came down the stairs. “Freaking….” A breath was sucked in, and then the voice continued. “Stairs.”

“Would you like me to carry you?” said a second voice. This one sounded vaguely Spanish-accented.

“I’ve got this!” the first voice insisted. The silhouette started moving faster, pants coming from it, and at length a girl came into view. Her hair was short and black, her left arm was in a cast, and her free hand was gripping the railing across her body. Her face was pale red with exertion, at least as far as Akko could see in the low light.

Two other witches followed behind her; one looked remarkably muscular and was carrying some sort of scooter, and the other’s giant glasses distorted her eyes hugely.

Akko’s eyes widened, and she jumped a little. “I know who you are! You’re Alice… Ganymede? Galvanize?” She frowned.

“ _Gainesbury_.” Alice reached the bottom of the stairs at last and sucked in a breath. The muscular witch hurried down and put down the scooter, which Alice quickly accepted, putting her arm on the handlebar and knee on its seatpad-thingie. “Thanks, Ximmie. This is Ximena, by the way,” she said, and then gestured to her other side, “and that’s Rain. They’re my favorite people right now.”

“Right, Alice _Gainesbury_.” Akko frowned. “You’re the one who used to be friends with—”

“Can I have your autograph?”

Akko blinked a few times, as Alice lifted a large book from a cubby on the side of her scooter and held it toward Akko. This was new.

Rain squinted, though with how much her glasses magnified her eyes, that only reduced them to normal size. “You two dudes look stressed. I bet I could help with that.” She reached into her robes and pulled out, for some reason, a needle.

Ximena glared down at her. “Rain. Stop offering to poke everyone we meet full of holes.”

“It’d help. You know it. S’all I’m sayin’, dude.”

“There are other issues in play here! Like, for instance, bodily autonomy!”

“Which is why I’m asking. All works out.”

The two glared at each other, but Akko saw the ghosts of smiles on their faces. Then, however, Alice cut in with a short, sharp, “ _Can it_ ,” and the two stopped bickering. Alice smiled. “She really is trying to help. About that autograph?”

“Uh.” Akko took the book—surprisingly light for its size—and opened it up. There was a page in the middle, one which had the signatures of just about every teacher at the school, as well as an elegant _Diana Cavendish_ in cursive. “I remember now,” Akko said, as Alice handed her a pen to sign with. “You asked Diana to sign it and I was there and you didn’t even _notice_ me.” She pouted.

“Everyone knows Diana Cavendish.”

“Uh….” Akko grinned, or at least showed teeth, and pointed at her face. “Every screen in the world? International sensation?”

Alice glowered. “I was in the hospital that month. Spent most of it unconscious. Look, I recognize you _now_ , so sign it, okay?”

“Uh… oh, okay.” Akko shrugged and signed it with a flourish, just below Diana’s name, then offered the book back. “You’ve got a lot of these.”

“I do, yeah.” Alice took the book back and gave it a… sort of weird look. Akko wasn’t sure what to make of it: somewhere between wistful and resentful? “I’ve been working on it for a while. Since I was about nine, actually.”

 _When she got sick,_ Akko’s brain supplied.

“I… always wanted to be a great witch. But something happened to me and I… couldn’t.” She looked away for a moment. “This book was sort of a way to… at least get involved, somehow. A way to at least be _near_ the great witches, as if it would somehow rub off….” She snorted. “Look, I was nine. I was dumb and… I’d given up, I guess. I’d decided that the rest of my life was gonna go down the drain, and years of it did. Down the _freaking_ drain.”

The way she said _freaking_ put Akko in mind of another word.

“But now?” Alice looked up again. “Now I’ve met these two.” She reached out with her right arm and put it around Ximena; a twinge of movement from her cast suggested she was trying to do the same with her left around Rain’s shoulders, but she winced and grimaced with pain. “Freaking cast…. They’re the best friends ever. And guess what?”

Her grimace of pain turned up, so that it was a smile—still a smile of pain. “I can go places now. I can live. I can have a _life!_ And I’ve decided something about that.”

A smile of pain, and something else. She looked… Akko wasn’t sure of the word. Hungry? Angry? Furious, even?

Alice pulled her arm off Ximena and stepped forward, pushing her scooter until she was right in Akko’s face. “No one gets to stop me from doing something I want to do. Not ever, ever, _ever_ again. And I’ll kick and claw and _bite_ to keep the life I’ve just gotten back.”

Her gaze was piercing, and Akko had the right word for it now. _Starving_. It was like she’d been starving and had been given a morsel of food, and the beast of hunger inside her had awoken.

Akko laughed nervously. A kid on a mobility scooter with her arm in this cast shouldn’t have been this unnerving. “So. Um. You… paid us out of jail… because?”

“First of all, not my money.” Alice let out a laugh. “And second? Because that bitch of a policewoman took my wand.”

Akko squinted. Behind her she heard Diana murmuring, “Language, please.”

“She says I can’t fly a broom in town,” Alice continued. “She’s a _moron_ and this law was made by _morons_ and this town is full of _morons_ , and like _hell_ am I gonna stand for it. And you two—” she jabbed a finger at Akko and Diana “—are the only ones who seem to give a crap about it. _And_ the only ones who might be able to pull it off, either. So….”

She held her hand in a fist. “I wanna see you fix this town. For me. So I can actually fly my broom and do magic here and stuff.”

Diana stepped forward beside Akko, and her lips were pursed. “For you?” She frowned. “To be clear. Not for the citizens of this town. I’m not ungrateful by any means,” she added, holding up her hands as Alice glared at her, “but this seems a little… self-centered.”

“Are you calling me selfish?”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Let me tell you about selfish.” Alice stepped forward. “ _Selfish_ is what they call you when they’ve got everything and you’ve got _nothing_. When they spend their time pretending like they care, like they’re trying to _help_ you, and then she walks away and leaves you with _nothing!_ And then _you’re_ the selfish one when you try to do something for yourself for once? Well, if that’s what she’s gonna call me, then I’ll be selfish any day of the week!”

Akko bit down on her tongue so hard that she winced—it was all she could do not to mention the switch from _they_ to _she_.

“So you know what? Be selfish. Get mad! Kick and claw and bite and _scream_ , and don’t _take_ it anymore!” Alice was yelling right at their faces. “I don’t _care_ what reason you need, but break this stupid law and break it into _smithereens!_ ”

Alice took several steps back, panting like a bull—seeing red. The outburst had clearly taken a lot out of her. “And if you can find the time,” she wheezed, “poke that awful policewoman in the eyes, too.”

“Aw, dude, don’t be mean to the cop.” Rain pouted. “She’s probably just sad cuz her sister blew up.”

Diana’s head whipped up. She strode across the room. “Pardon me. What was that about Officer Widdecombe?”

“Yeah, so, like, I’m social? And this morning while those two dudes were….” Rain pointed vaguely at Ximena, who had taken out a hand gripper in the meantime and was exercising with it, and at the still-furious Alice. “What were you dudes doing? Jogging, or something?”

“Today’s a rest day,” Ximena muttered. “I only jogged once this morning.”

“Yeah, sure. Point is, I was at a bakery. I got chatting with the bakers. Turns out the policewoman’s sister—Lizzie, I think?—was the one who blew up. So that Janine Widdecombe lady miiiiiiight be unhappy about magic or something, I dunno.”

“I don’t really care about her sobstory. She’s still a dumb bitch.” Alice sucked in a deep breath. She seemed to be sweating, and she confirmed it when she wiped her forehead. “Look, _I_ need to go home, because I’m probably gonna pass out on the street and go into shock, or something. But _you_ two need to do this—for whatever reason you need. Me, or the town, or you.”

Akko nodded slowly. “Huh. I… guess that makes sense. Thanks, Alice!”

“Don’t mention it.” Alice smiled, then panted again. “Okay, I am not making it back up those stairs. Ximmie, I’m really sorry, but—”

Ximena bent down, picked up the scooter with Alice still on it, then jogged up the stairs. “Thanks a million,” she breathed. Then she locked gazes with Akko and Diana one more time. “Raise hell!”

“Bye,” Rain said, following them up, waving back to Akko and Diana as she went.

They were alone in the basement. “She’s nicer than I expected,” Akko said. “Well, okay, maybe not _nicer_ , but…. Is there a word for being friendly without being nice?” She shrugged. “So where do we stand?”

“In the basement of the Blytonbury jail.” Diana ran her fingers through her hair. The time spent against the cell wall had gotten it somewhat into disarray, but she smoothed it out quickly. “We don’t have wands.”

“Or brooms. And Janine said we can’t get our wands back, either.”

“So. No magic. No flight. We’re a little low on resources.”

Akko thought about the autograph book, and she smiled. “I think something _else_ might prove more vital in our crusade.”

A few seconds of silence passed. Diana frowned at her.

“I meant, like, our reputations. Because you said earlier about how your reputation was really helpful, and—” Akko groaned. “I was trying to be clever, okay?”

* * *

“I like my camera,” Char said, holding it up and taking some pictures as they walked.

“I’m glad,” Tiff said, smiling. “Now let’s go home.” She pursed her lips. “And obviously get our wands back first. Does… anyone know where City Hall actually is?”

“Let’s find out _quickly_ ,” Mani said. The stress on her face, and her increased rate of breath, were still obvious several minutes after leaving the jail. “It’s getting agitated again—I feel like it could happen _whenever_!”

“It’s not gonna happen,” Tiff said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“This is a really _nice_ camera,” Char said again, a little louder, aiming it at a lamppost.

“But what if it does? You don’t know it won’t!”

“I promise you, it’s not going to—”

“Hey, Tiff, mate?” Char raised a hand from the camera and did a little wave. “Can I ask a favor? I know you paid for the camera and all but I need another one.”

“Um… okay?” Tiff turned to face her. “What is it?”

“Shut the hell up for five goddamn seconds.”

The words were spoken in her usual laconic tone. They worked, too. Tiff felt her lower jaw sagging slightly, but didn’t quite have the wherewithal to bring it back up.

“Thanks,” Char said, probably five seconds later: Tiff was absolutely not counting. “Next favor, uh… stop telling Mani whether she knows what’s going to happen in her body or not. She’s the one who might explode. Pro’lly knows better than you.”

“But—” Tiff brought up and held out her hands in ideological self defense. “I’m not trying to call her _stupid_ or something! I’m trying to reassure her! Why do you think I’m—”

“Mani,” Char said, a little louder still, “scale of one to ten. How reassured do ya feel?”

“Um.” Mani frowned, scrunching up her nose a little. “Three?” Char didn’t respond verbally to that; she just gave Tiff a look.

“Whatever!” Tiff threw her hands in the air. “Whatever, okay? We’re going to City Hall anyway, as soon as we can find where it is, so whatever! As soon as we just—”

“Ten blocks.” Char had her phone out before Tiff knew it, and then she put it away just as quickly. “And then a right. It’s clear across town.”

“All right!” Tiff let out a pant of frustration. “And I guess we should _run_ there too, right?”

Char sighed. “I guess I’ll do what I can.”

“Oh, aren’t _you_ just in the helping spirit.” Tiff set off at a jog with a roll of her eyes. Mani followed her “And if you’re telling me to do something,” Tiff continued, glancing back at the lagging Char, “please don’t cuss at me?”

“You have not heard me curse yet.”

“I’ve heard you use the….” Tiff shuddered. “The _C_ word.”

“So?”

* * *

Thank goodness phone books were still a thing. Akko peered at the one she was holding, peered at the number on the house, then smiled, dropped the book, and hopped forward to the doorbell. _Ding dong!_

A few seconds passed, and then a familiar young girl opened the door. Stella looked up at them, and her face broke into a huge smile. “Miss Akko! Miss Diana! You’re okay!”

“Never better!” Akko said, while Diana beside her gave a little smile and wave. “Is one of your parents home?”

“Um… Dad!” Stella turned her head and yelled as loud as she could. A few more seconds passed, and then a grumpy looking man appeared. That was okay: the others had been grumpy too.

“Hi!” Akko waved. “This is Diana Cavendish, and I’m Atsuko Kagari, but you can call me Akko! _Or_ , you can call us the girls from Starfall.”

His eyes widened a bit in recognition. A crack in the armor of his grumpiness. Akko pressed forward: “Did you know that the new magic suppression law could get your daughter blown up?”

And the crack got a little bigger. Akko moved to the side a bit to let Diana handle the meat of the explanation: she’d probably taken debate classes or something when she was younger, and where Akko was way better at being likable and first impressions, Diana cornered the market on persuasive argument. They’d done this more than a dozen times by now. They’d gotten _really good at it_.

“So you see,” Diana finished, “it’s about your daughter’s safety, but so much more as well. It’s about giving her the chance to grow up with all the opportunities she deserves to have, as a witch and as a person.”

Stella’s dad nodded. He’d done that with increasing frequency as Diana’s argument had gone on, and now he didn’t look grumpy at all.

“ _Sooo_ ,” Akko said, leaning in and smiling up. “Are you with us? The march is at, um….” Diana held up her watch for Akko to read, and Akko smiled. “Ten minutes from now!”

“I… yes. I think so.” Stella’s dad blinked a couple times. “Er. How many people do you expect to appear?”

“Ohhh….” Akko put on a big, cheesy grin. “We’ve got a _bit_ of a crowd….”

* * *

No, Tiff and her friends _hadn’t_ run all the way to City Hall. Tiff had tried, and Tiff had failed (Char and Mani had not tried). They arrived through the front doors panting with exhaustion.

“It’s messed up,” Char said, “that this is on the other side of town from school.” She looked ready to sprawl on the floor and sleep right there.

“We’re here,” Tiff managed. “It’s okay.” She pushed her hands off her knees, kept herself upright, and made her way to the receptionist at the desk. “We’re here… for our wands. I’m Tiffany Vandergard, and she’s Charlotte Jones, and—”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry.” The receptionist held up her hand. “I’m not in charge of returning wands. I don’t actually have them down here.”

“What? Then who—” Tiff sucked in another breath. Hopefully her heartbeat would calm down before long.

The receptionist’s raised hand pointed up the stairs. “As far as I know, all wands were given directly to the mayor himself.”

Char looked up from panting. “What, really?”

“That does seem… _weird_ ,” Mani said. She’d recovered by now.

Tiff smiled. “I’m sure he just wants to give his most _special_ attention to taking care of them.” A more skeptical voice in her head was saying that that was a load of hooey—what was the point of delegation, anyway?—but she successfully ignored it. “Thank you anyway,” she said, smiling and nodding at the receptionist.

She walked up the stairs. Mani followed right behind her, and Char lurched along in the rear.

A map of the building was affixed to a wall by the stairs, and Tiff followed its instructions, sending her up another flight of stairs to the mayor’s office. She turned the corner, and there was the door—but there were also two huge men with sunglasses and shaved heads standing there. Tiff stopped short.

Mani did not. She walked forward, although she looked like an ant fearing an oncoming boot as she did so. “Excuse me,” she said, “is this the mayor’s office?”

“Yes,” said one of the men.

“This is where the wands are, right?”

“Yes.”

“Can I….” Mani tapped her index fingers against each other. “Go and get mine?”

“No.”

Mani took a step back. “Um. I _need_ it?”

“Mayor says no one comes in.” The voice may as well have come from a robot. “He has important business with the wands.”

“No, you don’t understand. I really—” Mani shivered “— _really_ need it.”

“Mayor says no one comes in.”

“Listen, please—!”

“Mates?”

Tiff turned around. Char was finally rounding the corner. “I think something’s wrong with my camera.”

Tiff squinted. “Nothing’s wrong with it, I _just_ bought it—no, hang on, _how_ is that the most relevant thing right now?”

“No, but really.” Char trudged closer and pressed at the button. “Flash isn’t working. Don’t think it’s taking pictures. See?” She got up close to Tiff, held her finger over the shutter button, and _almost_ pushed it down. Her finger was on the button, but not applying any force. And then she winked at Tiff.

Char kept walking, and Tiff turned on the spot to watch her. “Look, Mani, it’s not working. And, uh, you guys—could you take a look? Maybe I’m doing something wrong?” She held up the camera, and the two men leaned in.

Char’s left hand came up like a striking snake, slapping the sunglasses off both men just as her right hand hit the button for real. The flash _was_ working, and moreover, it was working right into their newly exposed eyes. They let out yelps of pain, bringing their hands up to cover their abused eyeballs.

“Go, go, go,” Char muttered. Mani gulped, ran forward, and twisted the doorknob.

“Hey!” Tiff called, running forward to follow her in. “You’re basically breaking and... and….”

The three of them were inside, by the door.

A morbidly obese man who could only be the mayor was on the other side, naked in a bath full of wands. He froze in the middle of scrubbing some of them against his pits.

Tiff’s eyes bulged. His eyes bulged. On a little table near the bath was a book, and on its spine the book read, ‘ _Just Like Magic! All the Secrets to Gaining Immense Mystical Powers—That_ They _Don’t Want You to Know!_ ’

Tiff’s eyes bulged further.

The mayor’s face went blotchy red, like badly mixed paint, and he made to stand up. “No, God,” Tiff blurted out, holding her hands out to block her sight of him, “please be wearing underwear, _please_ be wearing underwear!”

“Security!” he squealed, and Tiff yelped as he waddled out of the bath and toward him, exposing the part of his body by his hips, and—oh, thank _heavens_ , he was wearing tighty-whities. “Security!” he yelled again, still clutching the wands he’d been using like a weird wooden loofah. “Gary! Perry! Get in here!”

One of those wands had a tag. Mani gasped, and she ran forward. “That’s _mine!_ Imani bint Abdallah al Kairouani! That’s _my wand!_ ”

She grabbed at the bundle that the mayor was holding. He gasped, and pulled back. “How dare you! I need these!”

“It’s _my wand!_ It belongs to _me!_ ”

“You are interrupting _official_ mayoral business—”

A flash of light filled the room. Tiff, the mayor, and Mani looked at Char, who was holding the camera up. “I love this camera,” she said, a slight smile on her face.

The mayor’s face went fully red. “ _Securityyyyyyyyy!_ ”

And they finally came in, tear tracks running down from their eyes. Their sunglasses were back on, and just now, Tiff got a sense of exactly how large they were. Each one, on his own, looked to match the combined bodyweight of Tiff and her friends.

“Get rid of _that_ ,” the mayor yelled, pointing a quivering finger at the camera, “and get _them_ out of my sight!”

One of the men—Tiff decided to mentally label him as Gary—reached forward and grabbed Mani around the midsection, pulling her away from the mayor. She yelped as her hand lost purchase on the wands. Perry, meanwhile, reached down and yanked Char’s camera from her hand, then dropped it on the floor. He raised his leg and—

 _Stomp._  It abruptly stopped being a camera and started being a twisted pile of metal and glass scraps. Char looked up at Perry, a quiet angry look in her eyes. “I _loved_ that camera.”

Tiff felt her face going red and hot and blotchy. “You,” she hissed, and stepped forward. “How _dare_ you? You—you’re supposed to be keeping the town _safe_ , and you’re just doing _this?_ You call yourself the _MAYOR?_ ”

She tried to step forward again, but then there was a huge hand on her shoulder—either Gary’s or Perry’s, and she wasn’t sure which. It dragged her back. “I’m gonna tell people about this!” she yelled. “I’m gonna tell them what you did!”

The mayor, who had started putting on a bathrobe once Mani had let go of the wands, smirked. “And who will they believe, little girl? You, or the Mayor of Blytonbury?” He laughed. “ _I’ve_ got a reputation. Security, see them to the front door.” He tugged at the collar of his bathrobe as if wearing a suit.

Gary and Perry shoved them through the door of the mayor’s office, slamming it behind themselves. One of them, quite possibly Gary, had a hand on both Tiff and Mani, while the other was pushing a sullen Char. “I _loved_ that camera.”

Tiff’s mind was shortcircuiting. “But—he’s the _mayor!_ ” Going through the same loops over and over again like a broken record.

“Yup,” Char said. “And he broke my camera.”

“He’s the _mayor!_ ”

“Yup.” Char grumbled. “And the picture’s gone too.”

“But he’s not supposed to do that! He’s the _mayor!_ ”

They came to the first set of stairs, and Tiff and Mani hurried down them, because the alternative might have been getting shoved down the flight. “He sure is,” Char said. “And now there’s no evidence against him, because I definitely didn’t take other pictures.”

“ _How dare he!_ ” Tiff yelled. “How _dare_ he do that!”

“I said,” Char repeated, a little louder, “there’s no evidence against him, because I _definitely_ didn’t take—”

“I’m gonna die!” Mani wailed.

“Mates, you are _not_ hearing what I’m saying here….” Char frowned. “Do you hear something?”

Tiff, Mani, and Char stopped. So did the security guards, even. She _did_ hear something, now that they’d approached the second set of stairs. And unless her ears were deceiving her, it sounded an awful lot like chanting.


	16. Are You With Me? (4)

“We will not give up the fight!” Akko chanted in a musical cadence.

“ _We will not give up the fight!_ ” the crowd echoed behind her.

“Give us back our wands tonight!”

“ _Give us back our wands tonight!_ ”

Akko had no idea how good she was at counting crowds: she’d never had to do it before, and she’d never gotten tested on it. Were there tests for that? In any case, she felt _pretty_ confident in giving an estimation of _hundreds_. Hundreds of people echoing her words, marching behind her, through the doors of City Hall. It felt… _powerful_.

Best not to let it go to her head.

She and Diana marched at the front. Akko punched her fist in the air to match the beat of the chant, and Diana’s strides were less ebullient but no less purposeful. Akko could tell this sort of shouting wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, but she was pushing through it.

Up the stairs they went, past the shocked-looking receptionist. They took a right, and—oh, this _had_ to be a joke. “Hi, Tiff!” Akko said, waving to her. “This is getting weird. _We will not give up the fight!_ ”

The Tiff in question was being manhandled, along with her friends, by a pair of security guards. The guards looked up with what was probably shock—it was difficult to tell, they weren’t super emotive—as Akko’s protest approached without breaking stride, like floodwaters flowing along the hallway and rising up the stairs.

The two of them let go of their quarries, and Tiff and her friends joined the mob. Or got absorbed by it, anyway. There weren’t a lot of options. “What do you want?” one of the men said, backing up.

“I’m here to see the mayor.”

“You can’t—” he started to say.

“Oh, _please_ tell me I’m not allowed.” Akko bared her teeth. “ _Please_ , tell me, ‘you and what army’?”

The crowd had kept up the chant (“We will not give up the fight—give us back our wands tonight!”) as she’d been conversing. The security guards looked past her, and gulped, and kept retreating up the second flight of stairs.

“What’s going on?” Mani yelped.

“Nonviolent protest!” Akko beamed at her. “Come on, join in, it’s a blast!”

“A _blast_ is exactly what I’m worried about!”

“Well, so are we! All the more reason to join in!”

The security guards reached the doors to what had to be the mayor’s office. They glanced over their shoulders, then opened the door to the officer, ran in, and tried to shut it. Akko ran in and thrust her arm through before they could, even though—“ _Ow!_ ”, she yelped—it _really_ hurt.

The crowd reached them only a second later, and Akko shoved the door open. “Mayor Bloomington!” she yelled. “We need to talk to you right now!”

The mayor sat behind his desk. His formal clothes looked like they had been thrown on in a hurry, and the security guards had taken flanking positions. “What is the meaning of this?” he yelled. “How dare you intrude upon me at this critical time!

One other thing: there was a giant old-fashioned bathtub behind him, filled with wands. It looked like it had been dragged from the corner of the room. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. “Were you… were you _bathing_ in those?”

“ _What?_ ” Mayor Bloomington’s voice squeaked a bit as he said it. He tugged on his collar and said, in a voice that was clearly trying desperately to be more normal, “Of course not. Preposterous.”

“It looks like you were,” Diana said, her voice as cold as Akko’s was hot.

“Circumstantial evidence!” He made a little _harrumph_ noise, to boot. “You can’t prove anything! It’s just a _collecting basin_.”

“Yeah… nah.”

This voice was quiet, and yawning, and it came from Char. She’d been swept up at the front of the mob, and now she turned around to look at em. “Mates, you’re gonna love this. Go on Twitter, look up hashtag #BloomingtonBath. One word.”

“Er, why?” Akko said.

“Oh, just that you’ll see this.” She pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and showed the screen to Akko. It had a couple of pictures on it, which Char swiped through: the half-naked mayor in the bath, scrubbing himself with wands; Bloomington still in the bath, eyes bulging as he looked at someone out of shot; and, finally, the mayor wrestling for a wand with Mani.

Murmurs arose in the crowd behind Akko. It seemed like they were seeing the pictures too. Diana’s hand was over her mouth, and Akko recognized it as Dianese for “I would be vomiting if it wasn’t impolite”.

“What?” the mayor exclaimed. “I had that picture destroyed!”

Char smirked, just a bit. “Yeah, it looked that way. But I took some pics with my phone before the flashy one with the camera. Close-up magic—all about misdirection.” She turned toward Tiff and snorted, then held her phone out to take yet another photo. “See, Tiff, you were right—I _could_ take pictures with my phone.”

The mayor sputtered. The murmurs in the crowd grew, and they seemed to be approaching an uproar.

“Enough!” Diana strode forward and slammed her hand on the desk, staring the mayor down. “This _ridiculous_ and _unethical_ law of yours ends _now_. The people of Blytonbury demand it. _We_ demand it!”

Bloomington stared up at her, his face blotched with rage. Before he could say anything, though—

“ _Excuse me!_ ”

Oh, thank goodness! Akko had been worried she wouldn’t show. She turned around and watched as a disturbance in the crowd grew closer and closer, marked by a police hat poking above the throng, until Janine Widdecombe finally burst from the mass, truncheon at hand. She looked exhausted, miserable, and like she still hadn’t changed clothes since her spill in the creek.

Akko waved. “Hi, Janine! Glad you could make it!” And she meant it, too.

Janine stiffened. “How did you—” She shook herself a little, just enough for it to be visible. “While on duty! My _name!_ Is Officer Widdecombe—”

“Your name is Janine,” Diana interjected. She turned around from the desk and stared Janine in the eyes. “Your sister’s name is Elizabeth. And you’re enforcing a policy that will _kill_ her.”

Janine took another step forward. “What on Earth are you talking about.”

Diana jabbed her finger at the Mayor, over her shoulder. “Did _he_ tell you your sister had been _misusing_ magic? She wasn’t using it at all. And because she wasn’t, the magic accumulated inside her body, until it couldn’t be contained any longer. Until it hurt her.”

“You’re lying!” Janine stepped forward.

“Where was her wand?”

“What?”

Diana narrowed her eyes. “You think she was misusing magic? Then where did she get a wand? Surely an attentive older sister like you would have _noticed_ if she’d had one.”

“I—but—”

“The mayor’s a big fat _liar_ ,” Akko said, stepping up too. “He just lied about what happened and made up this stupid ban so he could—so he could do _this!_ ” She grabbed Char’s phone and held it up to Janine, showing her the pictures. Janine recoiled. “So what are you gonna do?”

“I—” Janine looked around. She stood between the people on one side, and Mayor Bloomington’s desk on the other. “I am an officer of the law, and no matter my _personal_ feelings on the matter—”

“Is that Janine saying that, or Officer Widdecombe?”

Janine’s eyes darted, and she didn’t move.

The mayor snorted, and he looked liable to let off steam at any moment. “Even _you_ betray me?” he yelled, pointing a quivering finger at Janine. “All right, I’ve heard _far_ more than enough of this! Gary! Perry!”

The two security guards looked at him expectantly. “Escort these people from _my_ building! Be as impolite as you see fit!”

They nodded, and walked around the desk toward the protestors, and—

Clutched at their stomachs, and collapsed, after the sounds of two short impacts. Janine stood before them, holding her truncheon in a quivering hand. “I trusted you,” she said, in a quivering voice. “I thought you were trying to _help_.”

“How—how _dare_ you!” the mayor yelled, but the fear in his voice outstripped its anger. “You—you won’t get away with—”

Janine advanced upon him and smashed her truncheon into his desk, cracking it down the middle. Mayor Bloomington yelped and recoiled in his chair, which overbalanced. He fell backward—

His head cracked on the rim of the bathtub, and he collapsed to the floor. The crowd cheered.

“Oh my gosh, is he okay?” Akko ran forward and vaulted the desk, and Diana took the slightly longer route around it. She knelt, hand on his neck, and then nodded up at Akko. Akko felt her shoulders relax. “Whew. Actually, no. _Woo!_ We did it!”

She stood up and hugged Diana, and the crowd cheered even harder. Diana pushed her away. Akko pouted. “Okay, I know this isn’t a Level Two situation, but it’s a special occasion—”

“It’s not that!” Diana’s eyes looked suddenly very worried, and Akko found herself shifting out of celebration mode before she’d even fully entered it. “I’ve just realized something horrible,” Diana said, and she turned to face Janine. “Officer Janine. How many days ago did Elizabeth Widdecombe have her accident?”

Janine was still shaking, looking down at the desk she’d shattered. Diana circled the table and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll repeat,” she said. “When did your sister have her accident?”

“Uh—three days ago.”

“And how long before _that_ did she start acting like something was wrong?”

“Three…” Janine’s eyes widened, and she let out a little gasp. “Three days.”

The room got quiet. Even the cheering stopped.

“We don’t have much time,” Diana said. She re-circled the desk, reached down, and grabbed three wands; one she tossed to Akko. “Everyone!” This was directed at the crowd. “Form into two orderly lines to retrieve your wands! Leave room in the middle for people to travel! _Quickly!_ ”

The crowd obeyed. “Come on, Janine,” she said, striding across the room. “And you, Akko. And _you_ , Imani.”

“Wh—me?” Mani barely managed to catch her wand as Diana tossed it to her, and the four left the room at a quick walk. “Why?”

“I’ll explain. Officer Janine, lead the way to the roof as quickly as you can. Answer my questions as you walk.”

“Wait, hang on!” Akko found herself both at the back of their little group, and metaphorically in the rear when it came to understanding what was going on. “You’re not saying she’s going to blow up _again_ , are you?”

Diana gave her a single look, just enough to affirm. Then her attention was back on Janine. “I need information from you. Does this building contain any witch’s brooms?”

“Er, yes—the mayor collected some, though I never knew what he did with them. Historical artifacts, I guess? Maybe I'm glad I didn't—”

“ _Veni_ ,” Diana said, holding her wand up. “And since this is city hall, it contains architectural plans for the buildings in town?”

“Yes, of course—”

“ _Veni_.”

They came to a door that looked less ornate, more… janitorial. Basically a maintenance shaft, judging by the sign next to it that promised roof access. Janine pulled out some keys and got to work unlocking it. “Akko, Imani,” Diana said without looking at them, “duck.”

“What do you mean—” Mani started to say, but Akko grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down, just in time for a broom and a plastic tube to fly through the air where their heads had been.

Diana caught both. “You hold this,” she said, tossing the broom to Mani. “And….” She grabbed the tube, yanked the cap off the end, and unfurled the scroll of paper within. “Ah, yes. One moment.”

She taped the scroll with her wand, and it floated flat and horizontal in the air before her—and then green light burst from it, creating a wireframe three-dimensional model of the hospital, as if built upon the paper. “Where on this map is your sister’s room?”

Janine opened the door. They climbed the stairs two at a time. “Here!” Janine said, pointing at a room that looked to be on the fifth floor. “Listen—if we need to get to the hospital, I can use Mum’s car—”

“Not fast enough,” Diana said. “But we’ve got someone who’s _very_ fast on a broom.”

Mani blanched. “Oh, you’re not saying—”

They burst out onto the roof. The whole of Blytonbury, in all its fall splendor, was laid out before them: quaint roofs and orange leaves. And there was exactly no time to appreciate any of it: Akko saw a distant building that looked shinier and newer than the others, and it matched the wireframe besides. "There!" she yelled, pointing.

“Get on,” Diana said. Mani got on her broom, trembling. Meanwhile, Diana waved her wand in front of herself, and a grid—a spreadsheet, in fact—appeared in the air in front of her, with numbers flashing and calculating within it. “Hold still,” she continued, waving her wand over Mani and her broom.

Mani gulped. “What are you doing?”

“Many things. In order….” Diana mumbled to herself as the spreadsheet continued to calculate. “Estimating your airspeed based on temperature, your magic potential, and the grade of the broom; adjusting your broom’s angle to line up with the hospital room—”

Mani’s broom rotated without her moving it, and she made an _eep!_ noise.

“—casting the spell that will cause you to lose your grip on the broom once you reach the hospital, because I know you have some difficulty with control; and casting the spell that will keep you safe from shards of broken glass.”

“Safe from _what?_ ”

“Shards of broken glass. You see, they can be rather sharp—”

“You want me to fly through a _window?_ I can’t do that!”

Akko walked forward and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey,” she said, and Mani looked at her. “You’re gonna do great. Remember, a believing heart is your magic, and _I_ —” Akko patted her on the shoulder again “—believe in you. You can do this, okay?”

Mani gulped. “I—well….” She gritted her teeth, and yelled, “You know _what?_ Can I just go before I have a panic attack!” She looked ready.

“Done,” Diana said, as the spreadsheet collapsed in front of her. “Go!”

Mani yelled, “ _Tia freyre!_ ”, kicked forward, and was off like a shot.

* * *

 _Smash_ went the windowglass, and it scattered in shards across the floor of the hospital room. Diana had not been joking: Mani didn’t feel anything more than a gentle patter against her skin, as if caught in a brief rainfall. The broom flew out of her hand and slammed against the opposite wall, and Mani skidded across the tile floor with the glass. What must have been a sterile room now looked a bit like a tornado had been through.

The room’s sole occupant, a girl who looked quite like a younger version of Officer Widdecombe—good, it would be really awkward if Mani had broken the window of the wrong room—jolted up in surprise. “It’s okay,” Mani said, standing and holding her hands up. “You probably have no idea what’s going on, but I’m here to help.”

“Get away from me!”

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you!” Mani winced. “I mean, I can see why you think I might, but—”

“No, _I’m_ gonna hurt you!”

The girl—her name was Lizzie, right?—was trembling as if feverish. There were devices attached to her, including a blood pressure cuff and others whose names Mani did not know, and at the end of those devices were machines, and those machines were beeping like mad. Her heartrate, at the very least, was sky high.

Mani stepped forward, and Lizzie pushed herself back in her hospital bed. “Don’t get near me! There’s something wrong inside me, it hurts things, it hurts people! It’s going to hurt you!”

“It’s okay,” Mani said, stepping forward, and then she bit her tongue, because—

“It’s _not_ okay!”

“No, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not. But _you’re_ going to be okay. Because you’re like me.” Mani held up her wand. “You’re a witch, like me. And that thing inside you is magic.”

She walked closer. “And it’s really scary. I get that too. _Really_ scary. And I wish I could just ignore it and hide and have nothing happen, but….” She was now at Lizzie’s bedside. “Can you stand up?”

She shook her head. “Okay,” Mani said, and sucked in a breath, and started disconnecting the various devices keeping Lizzie in bed. Some of them started making harsh whines. “All right, I’ve got you,” she said, and handed her wand to Lizzie. “Hold this?”

Lizzie held it. Mani scooped Lizzie into her arms and lifted her out of bed. “Okay, here we go,” she said, hauling herself to the window, careful not to step on any broken glass.

Footsteps from behind her. She glanced round to see a doctor running into the room. “Who are you?” he yelled. “You can’t be—”

“Shut the hell up for _five goddamn seconds_ , and let me save her life!” Mani yelled, and he shut up. She returned her attention to the floor, and managed to avoid the last bits of glass: she didn’t know if she was still invulnerable to cuts, but best not to risk anything. Now Lizzie was at the window. “Ever cast a spell on purpose before?” Mani grunted.

“No,” Lizzie said. “You really think I’m a witch?”

“Trust me. Point the wand out the window, and say these words: _Bella vida._ ”

“Bella vida?”

“Say it,” Mani huffed, “like you _mean_ it!”

“Bella vida. _Bella vida. Bella vida!_ ”

* * *

Fireworks burst from the hospital building.

The town of Blytonbury—already lit in gold by the setting sun—was splashed with bursts of red, blue, green, every color of light. They just kept coming, like it was Bonfire Night.

Akko jumped and whooped and hollered. “She did it! She vented the magic! Your sister’s okay!” She bounded closer to the edge of the building, laughing. “Wow, those are a lot of fireworks! She must have really been close!”

She turned around, smile still on her face, to see Diana smiling—and Janine on her knees. Trembling. Akko’s smile fell away, and she rushed to Janine. “Hey, don’t worry. These are the _good_ kind of explosions. They mean she released her magic in time. She's safe.”

“So she’s going to be okay?” Janine’s voice shook. “Lizzie’s going to be okay?”

Akko beamed, and held out a hand for Janine to take. “She’s gonna be way more than okay. Lizzie Widdecombe is going to be _great_.”

* * *

Lizzie panted, her arm drooping as the last of the fireworks died away. “It worked,” she said, and Mani noticed she seemed far less agitated now. “It… I feel okay! I really am a witch!”

“Good. Whew.” Mani hurriedly backed up, somehow avoiding any glass on the way, and dropped Lizzie to the floor once outside the foot-cutting zone. She tried to gently lower her to the floor instead, but the girl was surprisingly heavy, or perhaps Mani was just very unmuscular. In any case, Lizzie landed on her feet. “I need that back,” Mani panted, holding out her hand.

Lizzie frowned, but gave back her wand. “Where can I get one?”

“Heh. It’s funny you mention that.” Mani smiled. “I know this girl, and she’s got this program for magical outreach… actually, one second.” She looked up to see the doctor, still standing in the room, still staring at her. “Sorry about the mess,” Mani said. “I’ll just… clean it up.”

She stood, picked up the broom from where it rested on the ground, and started sweeping the glass into a more manageable pile. It wasn’t working _very_ well—the broom was built for flight, and its room-cleaning abilities were vestigial.

Mani grumbled. What she really needed was a _mop_.

* * *

“I am gonna sleep for a week,” Char grumbled.

Tiff rolled her eyes. “Really?”

“Today felt like it lasted, like, a _month_. And I wasn’t even there for most of the action.” Char rubbed her back and groaned. “I need to get off my feet.”

Tiff let out something that was either a snort or a chuckle: even she wasn’t sure which. She pointed her wand at Char—and she held it gingerly after the bath it had been in: she’d be scrubbing this wand with _lye_ once she got back to Luna Nova—and said, “ _Paleis Capama._ ”

A bubble enclosed Char, lifting her off her feet. “Aww,” Char said, “you’re the best.”

Tiff’s little smile wilted away. “I’m really not.”

“Naw, you’re just saying—”

“I screwed up _again._ ” Tiff clenched her jaw, sucked in a breath. “I make the _wrong_ choices and trust the _wrong_ people and can’t help _anyone_ and I keep getting burned!” She looked up at Char. “I was just trying to do the right thing, just trying to be helpful, and… and as it turns out, I aided and abetted some _jerkoff_ who deserves to be locked in a sanitarium! I keep getting it wrong!”

“Yup.” Char shrugged. “You kinda do.”

“I know, I know, that’s what I _just_ said—”

“But you know what, Tiff? I’m kinda proud of you.”

Tiff stopped walking and turned around. “Why?”

Char smiled beatifically. “‘cuz _jerkoff_ is the closest you’ve ever come to using a bad word.”

Tiff groaned and turned away.

“And ‘cuz… I dunno. It feels like you’re changing. Like you’re learning something, or something. Like every time you mess up, you come a little closer to not messing up like that again. And you came around this time, right?” Char let out a little, satisfied grunt. “You know, you’re not actually half bad, mate.”

“ _I_ _ncoming!_ ” yelled a voice from above.

Tiff flattened herself against the ground on instinct. Mani, riding a broom not calibrated for her, zoomed past faster than Tiff’s eye could follow, and touched down about three blocks away. “I’m okay!”

She didn’t crash or anything, either. Tiff raised her eyebrows, impressed. “She’s over there!” Mani yelled, pointing down the street at Tiff and Char.

“Thanks!” called a second voice from on high. Tiff looked to its source and saw Akko and Diana, riding a single broom. Akko held a bucket in one hand that was packed to overflowing with wands. She took one, passed it to Diana, and Diana tapped it with her own wand: it glowed and floated down toward Char.

“Ah, that’s where it got to.” Char smiled as it entered her bubble and fell into her hand. She waved up. “Thanks, big sis!”

“No problem, Char!” Akko waved right back, and they zoomed away. Tiff watched as scores of wands rose up from the bucket, wrapped in the same light, and floated down toward the street. Like magical wooden flakes of snow. Akko cheered, getting the attention of the townsfolk below. And now people all around them were raising their hands, catching their wands, cheering, like this was the ending of some Hallmark movie about the meaning of Christmas—except that it somehow didn’t feel cheesy, at least not to Tiff.

“They said this would be faster than getting everyone to City Hall,” Mani said, rushing back toward them, “but they wanted to give yours back personally, Char, because you helped so much!” Her broom was smoking slightly.

“Aw, shucks,” Char said. “I’m touched.” Then she glanced at Tiff and made head-motions toward Mani, and Tiff wanted to smack her for being so unsubtle about it, but….

Tiff closed her eyes for a second, took a breath, and walked toward Mani. “Mani,” she said. “I’m sorry about what I did today. I thought you’d be okay, and I thought it so hard I didn’t even consider you might not be.” She let out a shuddering sigh. “I want to… to stop doing that. I want to start listening instead. So… I’m sorry.”

She looked up, awaiting Mani’s judgment. Mani smiled, moved in, and hugged her. “It’s okay,” she said. “And it means a lot to me that you said it like that.”

Tiff snorted out a little chuckle, or possibly a sob. “You’re sounding like Akko.”

“Maybe I am? She’s infectious.”

With a sigh, Tiff let go. “All right,” she said, “let’s go home.”

She took her broom off her back and got on. Mani raised a hand, and Tiff smiled and let her get on behind. “ _Tia freyre_ ,” Tiff whispered, and the three of them rose into the air amid the snowfall of wands.

“Now come on,” Char said, “and say a _real_ swear.”

“No, Char.” Tiff pointed herself toward the leyline back to school.

“Come on, I’ll tell you some great ones! I believe in you!”

“No!”

* * *

Flores Flours was nearly closed for the day, but there was just enough time to fit three more customers.

Janine took a bite of her bagel, and tears welled in her eyes. “It’s _so good_ ,” she mumbled through a mouthful of dough. “And I’m _so hungry_.”

“So,” Diana said, “whatever happened with Mayor Bloomington after we left City Hall?”

Janine’s eyes narrowed, and she chewed for a few seconds before swallowing. “Well, he’s not the mayor anymore. He got voted out.”

Akko smiled. Janine sounded so much nicer when she wasn’t busy being Officer Widdecombe. Kind of grumpy at the moment, but who could blame her—and it was still a big improvement.

“Hm,” Diana said. “I was under the impression that there was no mayoral election this year.”

“Call it a snap election. Once people found out what he’d done, they… _snapped_.” Janine snorted bitterly. “I guess anywhere’s a democracy when people are mad enough. And I’m pretty sure _Mister_ Bloomington won’t be in charge of anything for a long time.”

She snorted again, even more bitterly, holding her bagel in one hand as they sat at what she’d told Akko was her favorite bakery. Which also happened to be Akko’s, because the world was funny like that. Karen Flores was busy behind the counter, finishing up their orders, and using a little heating spell Diana had shown her to heat up Akko’s hot chocolate. On the other side of the seating area, Stella and Claire were practicing magic over cups of tea, and little _fwaps_ hit Akko’s ears as the teabags kept hitting the ceiling.

The three girls sat at a counter facing the street: Janine on the left, Diana on the right, and Akko in the middle. Newly-minted witches filled the street, running around and sending sparks up and making things float, so that even as the sun went down the sky was filled with light and motion. It was a festival, and Akko wanted to run out and join in, so much that she was twitching—but it had been a _really_ long day. Maybe in a few minutes.

“It’s funny,” Janine said, eyes fixed on the commotion outside. “There’s been a Mayor Bloomington in this town for, I don’t know, a hundred years? It’s practically a hereditary position.”

“Even the oldest traditions can use some updating from time to time,” Diana said, and sipped at her mug of tea. “It’s a shame I had to get an arrest on my record to make the change happen, but life goes on, I suppose.”

“About that.” Janine snorted. “You wanna know something funny about Bloomington? The… _jerk_ … didn’t give me a break all day. Not to grab a bagel, not to go check on Lizzie, and _certainly_ not to process any paperwork. Even paperwork regarding arrests.”

Diana looked up with interest.

“Which means,” Janine continued, “that as far as the official record is concerned, no one got arrested today. And honestly? I don’t feel like correcting the record. It’s... the least I can do.”

She dropped her bagel and held her face in her hands. “God, I’m so stupid. I arrested you two and that other girl, I nearly got Lizzie killed, I feel like such an _idiot!_ This is awful.”

“Hey, it’s not so bad.” Akko patted her shoulder. “Thanks, Karen!” she added, as Karen set down her hot chocolate with a smile.

“It’s _very_ bad,” Janine said into her hands.

“It could be worse. You could be like Mister Bloomington— _he_ probably feels like he’s a genius, and like _we’re_ all dumb.” Akko rolled her eyes. “Honestly, feeling like an idiot is way underappreciated. It’s how I got where I am today!”

Janine snorted. “Sure.”

“So,” Diana said. “If Bloomington is no longer mayor, who is? Was there a deputy mayor?”

Janine snorted. “We’re not a big enough town for _that_. There’s no clear line of succession, it’s just… chaos. No one’s sure what to do.”

“Hmm.” Akko tapped her chin. “I guess they could use someone really smart and motivated in charge. Someone who knows firsthand how important magic is to Blytonbury.” She smiled and clapped Janine on the back.

Janine took her face out of her hands and looked at Akko, eyebrows up into her hairline. “What? How can you _possibly_ think I would be a good fit for a job as important as Mayor?”

“It can’t be that hard. Bloomington was doing it!”

“No, but—” Janine grimaced. “ _You_ of all people are telling me this? I _arrested_ you. You should _hate_ me!”

“Hate you?” Akko frowned. What a weird thing to say. “I mean, sure. I’m still kind of mad at you. But… I know you. I can hate you, or I can know you, but I can’t do both.” She let out a breath. “And you’d make sure this _never_ could happen again, right? Now that you know how much magic matters?”

Janine didn’t answer.

“Look,” Akko said. “I bet there’s plenty of other stuff in this town that needs to be better. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can’t wait for someone else to decide to fix stuff. If you’ve got the power, _you_ should be doing it. So hey, run for mayor! What’s the worst thing that could happen, right?”

Janine let out a laugh. “Maybe. And you two?” She looked up at Akko and Diana. “What will you two be doing?”

Akko reached out with her right and grabbed Diana in a half hug, pulling their chairs together. Diana didn’t protest the motion—in fact, she put her arm around Akko’s shoulder too. _Level Two achieved._

“I think we’re not done with what we’ve started here,” Diana said. “I think there’s a lot more work left to do.”

“So much work!” Akko said, and beamed. “There’s a lot of witches all around who need our help, and besides that, there’s gotta be a million towns like Blytonbury where people don’t know what to do about magic. We’ve gotta clean things up!”

“With a mop?” Janine smirked a little.

Diana rolled her eyes, but Akko laughed. “You know, the name’s starting to grow on me.”

* * *

Mani held a test in her hand.

It said _D_. That was all right: the last one had said F. The note from Professor Chariot read, _Good progress so far. Keep up the good work!_

Mani sighed. There was a long way to go.

* * *

“Honey!”

Victoria Vandergard, mother of (in her considered opinion) the greatest up-and-coming witch in the world, rushed into Vandergard House’s dining room, the _New York Times_ clutched in one hand. Her husband, Winfred, looked up from his omelette and stood. “What is it, Vicky?”

“Look who it _iiiiiiis_ ,” she said, pulling open the paper and laying it out on the table, covering up the nice silverware as she did so. Several pages deep in the paper was a headline: _Magic Activists Score Legislative Victory in England_.

Next to the headline was a picture, captioned: _Atsuko Kagari (left) and Diana Cavendish (right), the leaders of the Magic Outreach Program._ Another smaller caption read, _Photograph used with permission from Charlotte Jones._ The picture seemed to have been taken with a smartphone, and showed the two witches in question in front of a large mob of people, angry and chanting, and filling into some sort of office.

And they weren’t even _slightly_ what Vicky was looking at. “Look who it is!” she cooed, and tapped one corner of the photograph with her finger. “It’s our Falling Star, Freddie!”

Winfred’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” He grabbed the paper and held it up closer, so he could see Tiff’s surprised face, almost like she didn’t know where she was. “That’s amazing!”

“I know!” Vicky let out another coo. “Ooh, Freddie! Our little Falling Star, already in the news. Making an impact!”

“I’m proud too.” Winfred smiled. “Wow, I recognize those two girls too. From the, um….”

“The broadcast on Starfall, yes.”

“Seems like _they’re_ making an impact too.”

Victoria smiled widely. “Well, I guess we’ll be keeping an eye on Diana Cavendish and Atsuko Kagari.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this series of chapters was originally gonna be called "Akko-dentally in Politics", but there are some puns too terrible for even me.
> 
> Also I'm afraid I'm out of backlog, so the next chapters won't be weekly - at least not for a while.
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed so far!


End file.
